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The quality or state of being rapid; swiftness; celerity; velocity; as, the rapidity of growth or improvement.

A sickness felt by aëronauts due to high speed of flights and rapidity in changing altitudes, combining some symptoms of mountain sickness and some of seasickness.

croscopic organisms. They are very widely diffused in nature, and multiply with marvelous rapidity, both by fission and by spores. Certain species are active agents in fermentation, while others appear to be the cause of certain infectious diseases. See Bacillus.

(Mus.) Gradually diminishing in rapidity and loudness.

es on each wing which are used as defensive organs. It is a shy bird, and runs with great rapidity. Other species inhabit New Guinea, Australia, etc.

Rapidity of motion; quickness; swiftness. Time, with all its celerity, moves slowly to him whose whole employment is to watch its flight. Johnson.

To talk idly, carelessly, or with undue rapidity; to jabber; to prate. To tame a shrew, and charm her chattering tongue. Shak.

Possessed of, or characterized by, expedition, or efficiency and rapidity in action; performed with, or acting with, expedition; quick; having celerity; speedily; as, an expeditious march or messenger. -- Ex`pe*di"tious*ly, adv. -- Ex`pe*di"tious*ness, n.

ost violent; as, an extreme case; extreme folly. "The extremest remedy." Dryden. "Extreme rapidity." Sir W. Scott. Yet extreme gusts will blow out fire. Shak.

Swiftness; rapidity; velocity; celerity; speed; as, the fleetness of a horse or of time.

Of smooth, fluent, and rapid speech; speaking with ease and rapidity; having a voluble tongue; talkative. It becometh good men, in such cases, to be flippant and free in their speech. Barrow.

To utter inarticulate sounds with rapidity; as, gabbling fowls. Dryden.

Speaking or spoken smoothly and with flippant rapidity; fluent; voluble; as, a glib tongue; a glib speech. I want that glib and oily art, To speak and purpose not. Shak.

To issue with violence and rapidity, as a fluid; to rush forth as a fluid from confinement; to flow copiously. He smote the rock that the waters gushed out. Ps ixxviii 20. A sea of blood gushed from the gaping wound. Spenser.

Movement; manner of movement; particularly, movement with increased rapidity; -- used especially in the phrase con moto, directing to a somewhat quicker movement; as, andante con moto, a little more rapidly than andante, etc.

lored, but gradually become brown. The plant grows in rich pastures and is proverbial for rapidity of growth and shortness of duration. It has a pleasant smell, and is largely used as food. It is also cultivated from spawn.

A device for recording the length and rapidity of stride and the number of steps taken by a walker.

To beat with unnatural violence or rapidity; to palpitate, or throb; -- said of the heart. Spenser.

ons. In practice these theories and methods of the post- impressionists change with great rapidity and shade into one another, so that a picture may be both cubist and futurist in character. They tend to, and sometimes reach, a condition in which both representation and traditional decoration are entirely abolished and…

iberation or care; hurried; said or done before the time; as, a precipitate measure. "The rapidity of our too precipitate course." Landor.