# speedup

Pronunciation: say "SPEED-up" /ˈspiːdˌʌp/

## Noun

1. The amount or rate by which the time needed to do a given amount of work is reduced.
   - Simple: How much less time it takes to do the same amount of work.
   - _Switching to the new route gave our drivers a ten-minute speedup on every delivery._
   - _Moving the files to a faster server produced a noticeable speedup in the nightly backup._
2. An employer's demand that workers produce more output without being paid more.
   - Simple: When a boss makes workers do more work for the same pay.
   - _Hundreds of workers walked out to protest the latest speedup on the packing line._
   - _Union leaders warned that the new quotas were just a speedup by another name._
3. In computing, the relationship between how long a task takes and the number of processors used to run it.
   - Simple: In computing, how the time a job takes changes when more processors work on it.
   - _The simulation showed nearly linear speedup up to sixteen processors, then leveled off._
   - _Parallel programs rarely reach ideal speedups, because some steps must still run one after another._

## Origin

A noun formed from the verb speed up.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/speedup (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).