moment

noun

1. an indefinitely short period of time; instant: I’ll be with you in a moment.
2. the present time or any other particular time (usually preceded by the): He is busy at the moment.
3. a definite period or stage, as in a course of events; juncture: at this moment in history.
4. importance or consequence: a decision of great moment.
5. a particular time or period of success, excellence, fame, etc.: His big moment came in the final game.
6. Statistics. the mean or expected value of the product formed by multiplying together a set of one or more variates or variables each to a specified power.
7. Philosophy.
   1. an aspect of a thing.
   2. Obsolete.an essential or constituent factor.
8. Mechanics.
   1. a tendency to produce motion, especially about an axis.
   2. the product of a physical quantity and its directed distance from an axis: moment of area; moment of mass.

noun

1. a short indefinite period of timehe’ll be here in a moment
2. a specific instant or point in timeat that moment the doorbell rang
3. the moment the present point of timeat the moment it’s fine
4. import, significance, or valuea man of moment
5. physics
   1. a tendency to produce motion, esp rotation about a point or axis
   2. the product of a physical quantity, such as force or mass, and its distance from a fixed reference pointSee also moment of inertia
6. statistics the mean of a specified power of the deviations of all the values of a variable in its frequency distribution. The power of the deviations indicates the order of the moment and the deviations may be from the origin (giving a moment about the origin) or from the mean (giving a moment about the mean)

n.mid-14c., “very brief portion of time, instant,” in moment of time, from Old French moment (12c.) “moment, minute; importance, weight, value” or directly from Latin momentum “movement, motion; moving power; alteration, change;” also “short time, instant” (also source of Spanish, Italian momento), contraction of *movimentum, from movere “to move” (see move (v.)). Some (but not OED) explain the sense evolution of the Latin word by notion of a particle so small it would just “move” the pointer of a scale, which led to the transferred sense of “minute time division.” Sense of “importance, ‘weight’ ” is attested in English from 1520s. Phrase never a dull moment first recorded 1889 in Jerome K. Jerome’s “Three Men in a Boat.” Phrase moment of truth first recorded 1932 in Hemingway’s “Death in the Afternoon,” from Spanish el momento de la verdad, the final sword-thrust in a bull-fight. In addition to the idiom beginning with moment

moment of truth

also see:

at this point (moment)

every minute (moment) counts

for the moment

have one’s moments

just a minute (moment)

live for the moment

never a dull moment

not for a moment

of the moment

on the spur of the moment

weak moment