Latency

Definitions: Latency

Latency

Noun

1. (computer science) the time it takes for a specific block of data on a data track to rotate around to the read/write head.

2. The time that elapses between a stimulus and the response to it.

3. The state of being not yet evident or active.

Date "latency" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1844. (references)

Note: Latency \La"ten*cy\, noun. [See Latent.]. (Websters 1913)

Domain	Definitions
Computing	Latency 1. The time it takes for a packet to cross a network connection, from sender to receiver. 2. The period of time that a frame is held by a network device before it is forwarded. Two of the most important parameters of a communications channel are its latency, which should be low, and its bandwidth, which should be high. Latency is particularly important for a synchronous protocol where each packet must be acknowledged before the next can be transmitted. (2000-02-27). Source: The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing.
Aerospace	Of a computer: the time required to establish communication with a specific storage location, not including transfer time; equals access time less word time. (references)
Environment	Time from the first exposure of a chemical until the appearance of a toxic effect. (references)
Medicine	The period when an organism(i. e. , a virus or a bacterium)is in the body but not producing any ill effects. Source: European Union. (references)
	The period of apparent inactivity between the time when a stimulus is presented and the moment a response occurs. Source: European Union. (references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

The engineering definition of latency is the time a message takes to traverse a system. Latency is closely tied to another engineering concept, throughput. While each is a measure of speed in some sense, they are not exactly the same thing. Latency is a measure of amount of time between the start of an action and it's completion, whereas throughput is the total number of such actions in a given amount of time.

To illustrate, let's compare the transatlantic flights of a jumbo jet airplane and a supersonic passenger jet. The jumbo jet carries 1000 passengers but each trip requires 10 hours, while the supersonic jet is limited to 50 passengers with a flight time of only 2.5 hours. In this example, the jumbo jet effectively transports 100 passengers each hour it is in flight (throughput), but every passenger is stuck on the plane for the full 10 hours (latency). In contrast, the smaller plane averages only 20 people each hour, but those people enjoy a much shorter trip.

Both latency and throughput have a dramatic effect on the design telecommunications and computing systems, because improvements in one aspect often come at the expense of the other. For most operations, such as transferring files on your computer, throughput is the most important measure, because such operations aren't complete until all of the data has been transferred. On the other hand, the control system for the brakes on a car only needs to send a little bit of information (on or off), but that information needs to be sent with the shortest delay possible.

For computer music latency is extremely important. Latencies higher than 100 ms make working with a real time music program non-usable. Recently people have created JACK, which can provide for latencies like 1 ms.

See also rotational delay, which is another form of latency.

Reference:

It's the Latency, Stupid
JACK Audio Connection Kit, free software for GNU/Linux and MacOS X

Synonyms: Latency

Synonyms: latent period (n), reaction time (n), response time (n), rotational latency (n). (additional references)

Context	Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus).
Concealment	Latency; snake in the grass; secret; stowaway.
Latency Implication	Noun: {ant. } latency, inexpression; hidden meaning, occult meaning; occultness, mystery, cabala, anagoge; silence; (taciturnity); concealment; more than meets the eye, more than meets the ear; Delphic oracle; le dessous des cartes, undercurrent.
Physical Inertness	Noun: inertness, dullness; Adjective: inertia, vis inertiae, inertion, inactivity, torpor, languor; quiescence; latency, inaction; passivity.
Pitfall	Sword of Damocles; wolf at the door, snake in the grass, death in the pot; latency.
Secret	Noun: secret; dead secret, profound secret; arcanum, mystery; latency; Asian mystery; sealed book, secrets of the prison house; le desous des cartes.
Unintelligibility	Noun: unintelligibility; incomprehensibility, imperspicuity; inconceivableness, vagueness; Adjective: obscurity; ambiguity; doubtful meaning; uncertainty; perplexity; (confusion); spinosity; obscurum per obscurius; mystification; (concealment); latency; transcendentalism.
Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus.

Domain	Usage
Screenplays	For God's sake, Alvy, even Freud speaks of a latency period. (Annie Hall; writing credit: Woody Allen ; Marshall Brickman)
Movie/TV Titles	Dr. Selikoff Talks About the Latency Period (1978)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Domain	Title
Books	Latency (Classical Psychoanalysis and Its Applications) (reference) Latency determination and temporal filtering of retinal signals in photopic vision (reference) Psychotherapeutic Strategies in the Latency Years (reference) Retroviral Latency (Medical Intelligence Unit) (reference) Stochastic Models of Tumor Latency and Their Biostatistical Applications (Mathematical Biology and Medicine, Vol 1) (reference) (more book examples)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Subject	Topic	Quote
Health		The Multiple Sleep Latency Test (MSLT) measures the speed of falling asleep. (references)
		For the multiple sleep latency test, a person is given a chance to sleep every 2 hours during normal wake times. (references)
		A 50% reduction in development of tumors was observed in genistein-exposed rats, and there was a longer latency period for tumor development. (references)
Business		Although resolution and latency problems do exist, and although telecom charges are still quite high, the opportunities are virtually unlimited. (references)
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits.

"Latency" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "Latency" is used about 107 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted)

Parts of Speech	Percent	Usage per 100 Million Words	Rank in English
Noun (singular)	100%	107	31,463

Expressions using "latency": latency period ♦ Latency Period (Psychology) ♦ latency phase ♦ latency stage ♦ reflex latency ♦ rotational latency ♦ Virus Latency. Additional references.
Hypenated Usage
	Ending with "latency": low-latency.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com.

Language		Translations for "latency"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses.
Albanian		zhvillim i fshehtë, gjendje latente. (various references)

Arabic		‏كمون (cumin), ‏إستتار, ‏إختباء (hiding, lurking). (various references)

Bulgarian		латентност (dormancy, latence, quiescence, quiescency). (various references)

Chinese		潜在� � , 延遲 (delay). (various references)

Czech		latence. (various references)

Danish		latenstid (delay-time, dormancy, latent period, sojourn time), ventetid (access motion time, access time, break in the work, dead time, delay time, down time, dwell, head positioning time, hold, or disk heads or at the end of an acoustic tank, rotational delay, rotational delay-time, rotational latency, search time, seek time, the time spent waiting for the desired location to appear under the drum, time stood-off, time-out, unhook time, waiting time), søgetid (access motion time, access time, head positioning time, search time, seek time, waiting time), omdrejningsventetid (or disk heads or at the end of an acoustic tank, rotational delay, rotational delay-time, rotational latency, the time spent waiting for the desired location to appear under the drum), omdrejningsforsinkelsestid (or disk heads or at the end of an acoustic tank, rotational delay, rotational delay-time, rotational latency, the time spent waiting for the desired location to appear under the drum). (various references)

Dutch		latentie (dormancy), wachttijd (break in the work, days of demurrage, dead time, delay time, down time, dwell, lay days, or disk heads or at the end of an acoustic tank, qualifying days, qualifying period, rotational delay, rotational delay-time, rotational latency, the time spent waiting for the desired location to appear under the drum, time stood-off, waiting time). (various references)

Finnish		latenssiaika (dormancy). (various references)

French		latence. (various references)

German		Wartezeit (break in the work, days of demurrage, dead time, delay time, down time, lay days, qualifying period, time stood-off, wait, waiting period, waiting time), latenz (or disk heads or at the end of an acoustic tank, rotational delay, rotational delay-time, rotational latency, the time spent waiting for the desired location to appear under the drum). (various references)

Greek		καθυστέρηση (deceleration, delay, delayed action, dwell, hold-up, lag, retardation), χρόνος καθυστέρησης, χρόνος περιστροφής (or disk heads or at the end of an acoustic tank, rotational delay, rotational delay-time, rotational latency, the time spent waiting for the desired location to appear under the drum), χρόνος αναμονής (qualifying days, waiting time), άδηλο, λανθάνουσα κατάσταση (dormancy), αναμονή περιστροφής (or disk heads or at the end of an acoustic tank, rotational delay, rotational delay-time, rotational latency, the time spent waiting for the desired location to appear under the drum), αφάνεια (obscurity). (various references)

Hebrew		חביון (absconcio, hiding place, lair, latescence), כמיסות, טמירות. (various references)

Hungarian		lappangás (incubation, latence). (various references)

Italian		latenza (dormancy, or disk heads or at the end of an acoustic tank, rotational delay, rotational delay-time, rotational latency, the time spent waiting for the desired location to appear under the drum, waiting time). (various references)

Japanese Kanji		潜在 (dormancy, potentiality). (various references)

Japanese Katakana		せ�"ざい (decoction, detergent, dormancy, garden, long time, millennium, perpetuity, potentiality, pre-existence, thousand years, trees and flowers in a garden, washing material), せ�"ぷくせい, せ�"じ (war time). (various references)

Korean		� 복 (Dormant, lurking). (various references)

Manx		keiltynys (camouflage, furtiveness, harbourage, hiding, in concealment, reconditeness, screening, secrecy, secretness), folleydys. (various references)

Pig Latin		atencylay

Portuguese		estado latente (lateness). (various references)

Russian		скрытое состояние (delitescence). (various references)

Serbo-Croatian		latentnost (delitescence), skrivenost (furtiveness, secrecy). (various references)

Spanish		latencia (dormancy, or disk heads or at the end of an acoustic tank, rotational delay, rotational delay-time, rotational latency, the time spent waiting for the desired location to appear under the drum). (various references)

Swedish		latens. (various references)

Thai		การซ่อนเร้นอยู่� ายใน. (various references)

Turkish		henüz ortaya çıkmamış olma, gizli olarak varolma. (various references)

Ukranian		латентність (latence), прихований стан (delitescence, latence). (various references)

Vietnamese		sự tiềm t� ng, sự ngấm ngầm (implicitness), sự âm ỷ. (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references.

Misspellings
	"Latency" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: aliency, blatency, latencie, letency. (additional references)
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references).

# of Phoneme Matches	Pronunciation	Word(s) rhyming with "latency" (pronounced lā"tunsē)
5	-t u n s ē	accountancy, competency, consistency, constancy, consultancy, expectancy, hesitancy, incompetency, inconsistency, inconstancy, militancy, potency.
4	-u n s ē	absorbency, agency, ascendancy, ascendency, buoyancy, clemency, cogency, complacency, Conservancy, constituency, contingency, counterinsurgency, currency, decency, deficiency, delinquency, dependency, despondency, discrepancy, dormancy, efficiency, emergency, equivalency, excellency, exigency, expediency, fluency, frequency, immunodeficiency, incumbency, indecency, inefficiency, infancy, infrequency, insolvency, insurgency, interagency, irrelevancy, leniency, malignancy, nonemergency, occupancy, poignancy, pregnancy, presidency, proficiency, redundancy, regency, relevancy, residency, resiliency, solvency, stridency, stringency, sufficiency, tenancy, tendency, transparency, truancy, urgency, vacancy, vagrancy, vibrancy.
3	-n s ē	bouncy, chancy, deviancy, fancy, fiancee, mincy, Nancy, necromancy, teensy.
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits.

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams
	Words within the letters "a-c-e-l-n-t-y"
	-1 letter: acetyl, cantle, cental, lancet, neatly.
	-2 letters: canty, clean, cleat, eclat, enact, lacey, lance, laten, leant, lycea, yenta.
	-3 letters: acne, acyl, alec, ante, cane, cant, cate, celt, cent, clan, clay, cyan, elan, etna, lace, lacy, lane, late, lean, lent, neat, tace, tael, talc, tale, teal, tela, tyne, yean.
	-4 letters: ace, act, ale, alt, ane, ant, any, ate, aye, can, cat, cay, cel, eat, eta, lac, lat, lay, lea, let, ley, lye, nae, nay, net, tae, tan, tea, tel, ten, tye, yea, yen, yet.
	-5 letters: ae, al, an, at, ay, el, en, et, la, na, ne, ta, ya, ye.
	Words containing the letters "a-c-e-l-n-t-y"
	+1 letter: secantly.
	+2 letters: acetylene, anciently, centrally, certainly, cognately, connately, exultancy, inexactly, peccantly, petulancy, thylacine.
	+3 letters: accidently, acetylenes, acetylenic, adjacently, centrality, covalently, decadently, ethnically, exactingly, flatulency, inactively, inchoately, lectionary, melanocyte, noticeably, reluctancy, thylacines, unchastely.
	+4 letters: accentually, acceptingly, acetylating, acetylation, affectingly, amylopectin, ancestrally, anecdotally, anticruelty, anticyclone, ascendantly, centrically, circinately, colinearity, conjugately, counterplay, crystalline, cutaneously, expectantly, genetically, genotypical, glycerinate, granulocyte, hypocentral, identically, incessantly, ineluctably, intercalary, intricately, kinetically, lieutenancy, lycanthrope, melanocytes, metonymical, multiagency, reluctantly, sectionally, subjacently, technically, tenaciously, tetanically, tonetically, trenchantly, typicalness, uncertainly.
	+5 letters: accidentally, acetylations, adolescently, agranulocyte, amylopectins, anelasticity, antecedently, anticyclones, centennially, clatteringly, cleanability, collinearity, complacently, conceptually, congeniality, congenitally, consummately, contextually, conventually, coordinately, cotyledonary, counterplays, counterrally, cybernetical, discrepantly, elocutionary, enchantingly, entropically, frenetically, glycerinated, glycerinates, granulocytes, inaccurately, inchoatively, incidentally, indelicately, indicatively, inelasticity, inextricably, interfaculty, laryngectomy, lycanthropes, magnetically, neurotically, occidentally, opalescently, oxyacetylene, pedantically, phenotypical, phonetically, pinealectomy, proteoglycan, scatteringly, semantically, subcentrally, syndactylies, syndetically, technicality, tectonically, tetracycline, translucency, unacceptably, unaffectedly, unhysterical.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro.

Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)

4C 61 74 65 6E 63 79

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)

American Sign Language (origins from 1620-1817 in Italy and, especially, France) (references)

⁼

Semaphore (1791, in France) (references)

Braille (1829, in France) (references)

Morse Code (1836) (references)

.-.. .- - . -. -.-. -.--.

Dancing Men (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1903) (references)

Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)

01001100 01100001 01110100 01100101 01101110 01100011 01111001

HTML Code (1990) (references)

&#76 &#97 &#116 &#101 &#110 &#99 &#121

ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)

004C 0061 0074 0065 006E 0063 0079

British Sign Language (Fingerspelling, BSL; 1992, British Deaf Association Dictionary of British Sign Language) (references)

Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)

Expression	Frequency per Day
latency	61
cas latency	25
internet latency	16
latency patch pci	16
latency pci	13
latency memory	11
network latency	10
latency pci timer	9
latency patch via	8
latency patch pci via	8
latency network server terminal time window	8
latency multiple sleep test	6
latency test	5
latency modify timer	5
latency modify pci	5
latency via	4
bandwidth latency	3
latency memory speed	3
latency sleep	3
zero latency	3
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Latency

Definitions: Latency

Latency

Noun

Specialty Definitions: Latency

Computing

Aerospace

Environment

Medicine

Specialty Definition: Latency

Synonyms: Latency

Synonyms within Context: Latency

Concealment

Latency Implication

Physical Inertness

Pitfall

Secret

Unintelligibility

Crosswords: Latency

Modern Usage: Latency

Screenplays

Movie/TV Titles

Commercial Usage: Latency

Books

Non-Fiction Usage: Latency

Health

Business

Usage Frequency: Latency

Expression: Latency

Frequency of Internet Keywords: Latency

latency

cas latency

internet latency

latency patch pci

latency pci

latency memory

network latency

latency pci timer

latency patch via

latency patch pci via

latency network server terminal time window

latency multiple sleep test

latency test

latency modify timer

latency modify pci

latency via

bandwidth latency

latency memory speed

latency sleep

zero latency

Modern Translations: Latency

Albanian

Arabic

Bulgarian

Chinese

Czech

Danish

Dutch

Finnish

French

German

Greek

Hebrew

Hungarian

Italian

Japanese Kanji

Japanese Katakana

Korean

Manx

Pig Latin

Portuguese

Russian

Serbo-Croatian

Spanish

Swedish

Thai

Turkish

Ukranian

Vietnamese

Misspellings: Latency