accelerant

See also: accélérant

English

WOTD – 12 January 2021

Etymology

From accelerate +‎ -ant (suffix forming agent nouns from verbs, or forming adjectives with senses of being prone or tending to do the actions of verbs).[1]

Pronunciation

  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /əkˈsɛləɹ(ə)nt/, /æk-/
  • (General American) IPA(key): /əkˈsɛləɹənt/, /æk-/
  • Audio (Received Pronunciation):(file)
  • Hyphenation: ac‧cel‧er‧ant

Noun

accelerant (plural accelerants)

  1. (chemistry) Any substance that can bond or mix with, or disturb, another substance and cause an increase in the speed of a natural or artificial chemical process.
    1. In the context of fire protection, a substance that accelerates the development of a fire, especially some hydrocarbon-based fuel used to spread a fire caused by arson.
      • 2010 September 25, William Glaberson, “Accelerant Was on Girls’ Beds, Witness Tells a Connecticut Jury”, in The New York Times‎[1], New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 17 June 2022:
        Accelerant was poured across the beds where the two daughters of a family in Cheshire, Conn., had been tied before a fire during a home invasion in 2007, a fire investigator told jurors on Friday.
    2. A substance used to catalyze the vulcanization of rubber.
  2. (figurative) Something that speeds up a process or the uptake of something else.
    • 2017 August 16, Laura Hudson, “Using YouTube as an Accelerant for Video Games”, in The New York Times‎[2], New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 24 September 2025:
      Hello Neighbor’s experience reflects the rise of video sites like YouTube as an accelerant for the video game business.
    • 2019 January 26, Kitty Empire [pseudonym], “The Streets review – the agony and ecstasy of a great everyman”, in Katharine Viner, editor, The Guardian‎[3], London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 8 April 2019:
      [Mike] Skinner can be credited with pouring lots of accelerant on pop in his time. In his absence, Caribbean-derived UK bass music became the de facto sound of British youth.
    • 2025 September 9, “A Gruesome Murder in North Carolina Ignites a Firestorm on the Right”, in The New York Times‎[4], New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 4 January 2026:
      But the brutal killing did not capture widespread attention until the security footage was released on Friday, at which point it became an accelerant for conservative arguments about crime, race and the perceived failings of big-city justice systems and mainstream news outlets in the Trump era.

Translations

See also

Adjective

accelerant (comparative more accelerant, superlative most accelerant)

  1. Causing acceleration or speeding up; accelerating.

Translations

References

  1. ^ “accelerant, n. and adj.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, December 2011; “accelerant, n. and adj.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Further reading

Catalan

Pronunciation

Verb

accelerant

  1. gerund of accelerar

Latin

Verb

accelerant

  1. third-person plural present active indicative of accelerō
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