[moh-men-tuh
m] 
[-tuh] , -tums. | 1. | force or speed of movement; impetus, as of a physical object or course of events: The car gained momentum going downhill. Her career lost momentum after two unsuccessful films. |
| 2. | Also called linear momentum. Mechanics. a quantity expressing the motion of a body or system, equal to the product of the mass of a body and its velocity, and for a system equal to the vector sum of the products of mass and velocity of each particle in the system. |
| 3. | Philosophy. moment (def. 7). |
| mo·men·ta (mō-měn'tə) n. A plural of momentum. |
| mo·men·tum (mō-měn'təm) n. pl. mo·men·ta (-tə) or mo·men·tums
[Latin mōmentum, movement, from *movimentum, from movēre, to move; see meuə- in Indo-European roots.] |
In physics, the property or tendency of a moving object to continue moving. For an object moving in a line, the momentum is the mass of the object multiplied by its velocity (linear momentum); thus, a slowly moving, very massive body and a rapidly moving, light body can have the same momentum. (See Newton's laws of motion.)
Note: Figuratively, momentum can refer to the tendency of a person or group to repeat recent success: “The Bears definitely have momentum after scoring those last two touchdowns.”
momentum