latency
/ˈleɪt(ə)nsi
/noun [mass noun]
1The state of existing but not yet being developed or manifest; concealment: tension, and the latency of violence, make the greatest impressions...
- Tension, and the latency of violence, make the greatest impressions.
- We also recorded the latency to the first aggressive behavior.
- We measured the latency of the choice for each female.
1.1The state of a disease not yet manifesting the usual symptoms: the latency of tumours in mice [as modifier]: the disease’s latency period can last up to five years...
- Exposure to arsenic leads to cancer only after a latency period.
- There may be different latency periods for the two malignancies.
- The disease's latency period can last up to five years, making it difficult to detect.
2 Computing The delay before a transfer of data begins following an instruction for its transfer: poor performance due to network latency [as modifier]: subscribers can expect some latency time when issuing a request [count noun]: there are several ways to minimize rotational latencies...
- Being the Internet, you can also not count on perfectly low latency connections all the time.
- If the network is busy, then voice calls can suffer from latency and the quality of the service becomes unacceptably low.
- If there is a little latency when a customer opens your e-mail, you might lose that customer.