moment

/ˈmoʊmənt/

/ˈmʌʊmənt/

Other forms: moments

A moment is a particular point in time. Some moments you remember forever: like the moment you earned your driver's license or the moment you learned that you passed your organic chemistry class.

A moment is a short, but unspecified, amount of time. At Thanksgiving, you are supposed to take a moment to be grateful for friends and family. Or maybe you have been asked to observe a "moment of silence" for a national tragedy. Moment can also mean "importance." If you say something is "of little moment," then you are saying it doesn't matter.

Definitions of moment

1. noun

   an indefinitely short time
   “wait just a moment”

   synonyms: bit, minute, mo, second

   types:

   New York minute, blink of an eye, flash, heartbeat, instant, jiffy, split second, trice, twinkling, wink

   a very short time (as the time it takes the eye to blink or the heart to beat)

   type of:

   time

   an indefinite period (usually marked by specific attributes or activities)
2. noun

   a particular point in time
   “the moment he arrived the party began”

   synonyms: instant, minute, second

   types:

   climax, culmination

   the decisive moment in a novel or play

   eleventh hour, last minute

   the latest possible moment

   moment of truth

   a crucial moment on which much depends

   moment of truth

   the moment in a bullfight when the matador kills the bull

   pinpoint

   a very brief moment

   time

   a suitable moment

   psychological moment

   the most appropriate time for achieving a desired effect

   anagnorisis

   the moment in a literary work when a character makes a startling or critical discovery

   high time

   the latest possible moment

   occasion

   the time of a particular event

   type of:

   point, point in time

   an instant of time
3. noun

   at this time
   “she is studying at the moment”

   synonyms: here and now, present moment

   type of:

   nowadays, present

   the period of time that is happening now; any continuous stretch of time including the moment of speech
4. noun

   importance in effect or influence
   “virtue is of more moment than security”

   synonyms: consequence, import

   types:

   matter

   (used with negation) having consequence

   hell to pay

   dire consequences

   type of:

   significance

   the quality of being significant
5. noun

   a turning force produced by an object acting at a distance (or a measure of that force)
   types:

   moment of inertia

   the tendency of a body to resist angular acceleration

   moment of a couple

   given two equal and opposite forces, the product of the force and the distance between them

   dipole moment

   the moment of a dipole

   electric dipole moment

   the dipole moment in an electric dipole

   magnetic dipole moment

   (physics) a current loop gives rise to a magnetic field characteristic of a magnetic dipole

   type of:

   force

   (physics) the influence that produces a change in a physical quantity
6. noun

   the n-th moment of a distribution is the expected value of the n-th power of the deviations from a fixed value
   types:

   second moment

   the expected value of the square of the deviations of a random variable from the point of origin

   variance

   the second moment around the mean; the expected value of the square of the deviations of a random variable from its mean value

   standard deviation

   the square root of the variance

   covariance

   (statistics) the mean value of the product of the deviations of two variates from their respective means

   type of:

   statistic

   a datum that can be represented numerically