rapid

Pluralrapids

1. 1
   adjective

   Happening or moving with great speed; very quick.

   The region underwent rapid industrialization in the 1950s.

   Her rapid response to the alarm saved several lives.

   Similarfast, quick, swift, speedy, brisk

   Oppositeslow, gradual, sluggish

   Note

   The everyday sense came into English from Middle French rapide and its Latin source rapidus. It covers motion (a rapid stream) as readily as change over time (rapid growth, rapid improvement), and Milton's "guide the rapid Wheeles" in Paradise Lost (1667) shows it at home in verse. For comparison, use more rapid and most rapid. Rapider and rapidest exist but are proscribed, so keep them out of careful writing.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A stretch of a river or stream where the water moves swiftly and turbulently, making it difficult to navigate.

   Experienced rafters learn to read each rapid before entering it.

   The river's rapids churned white against the rocks below.

   Note

   The river sense usually appears in the plural: the rapids below the falls, rafters running the rapids. The singular, a rapid, comes into its own when each rough stretch is counted or read one at a time. It is the swiftness of the everyday adjective turned into a place, the point where fast water becomes something to navigate.

3. 3
   adjective

   Steep; rising or falling in altitude over a short horizontal distance, said of a slope.

   The surveyors mapped a rapid incline along the canyon wall.

   A rapid drop in the terrain forced the road to switchback.

   Similarsteep, sharp, abrupt, sudden

   Oppositegentle, gradual

4. 4
   adjective

   Of a lens, plate, or film: requiring only a brief exposure time to capture an image.

   The studio kept a rapid plate on hand for low-light portraits.

   Early sports photographers prized rapid emulsions for freezing motion.

   Similarfast

   Oppositeslow

   Note

   A photographer's word, and what it praises depends on the object. A rapid lens lets in light through a wide aperture. A rapid plate or film carries an emulsion sensitive enough to form an image quickly. In both cases the speed belongs to the exposure, not to anything in motion. That is why the word could describe equipment for freezing a moving subject.

5. 5
   nounabbreviationellipsis

   Ellipsis of rapid chess.

   The grandmaster dominated the rapid but lost the blitz playoff.

   Organizers added a rapid to the weekend tournament schedule.

   Note

   Chess players clip rapid chess to its first word and set it beside blitz and classical play. The usual time control gives each side about fifteen minutes. Kasparov's How Life Imitates Chess (2010) recalls rapid games of twenty-five minutes each, against classical games of up to seven hours. The word stands alone as a noun (the rapid, classic or rapid) and also as a modifier (rapid games).

6. 6
   adjectivedialectalEngland

   Marked by violence or severity.

   The quarrel grew rapid, ending with broken windows and bruised knuckles.

   The wound he took in the brawl was rapid, and he carried the scar for years.

   Similarviolent, fierce, severe

   Note

   In the dialect speech of England, the word moves from speed to force: a rapid quarrel or blow is a violent or severe one. Most readers will take rapid to mean quick, so standard writing is safer with violent or severe. Keep this sense for reproducing a local voice, where its unexpectedness is part of the flavor.

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