second

Meanings

Adjective

• Number-two; following after the first one with nothing between them.
• Next to the first in value, power, excellence, dignity, or rank; secondary; subordinate; inferior.
• Being of the same kind as one that has preceded; another.

Adverb

• After the first; at the second rank.
• After the first occurrence but before the third.

Noun

• Something that is number two in a series.
• Something that is next in rank, quality, precedence, position, status, or authority.
• The place that is next below or after first in a race or contest.
• A manufactured item that, though still usable, fails to meet quality control standards.
• An additional helping of food.
• A chance or attempt to achieve what should have been done the first time, usually indicating success this time around. (See second-guess.)
• The interval between two adjacent notes in a diatonic scale (either or both of them may be raised or lowered from the basic scale via any type of accidental).
• The second gear of an engine.
• Second base.
• The agent of a party to an honour dispute whose role was to try to resolve the dispute or to make the necessary arrangements for a duel.
• A Cub Scout appointed to assist the sixer.
• A second-class honours degree.
• One-sixtieth of a minute; the SI unit of time, defined as the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of radiation corresponding to the transition between two hyperfine levels of caesium-133 in a ground state at a temperature of absolute zero and at rest.
• A unit of angle equal to one-sixtieth of a minute of arc or one part in 3600 of a degree.
• A short, indeterminate amount of time.
• One who supports another in a contest or combat, such as a dueller's assistant.
• One who supports or seconds a motion, or the act itself, as required in certain meetings to pass judgement etc.
• Aid; assistance; help.

Verb

• To agree as a second person to (a proposal), usually to reach a necessary quorum of two. (See under #Etymology 3 for translations.)
• To follow in the next place; to succeed.
• To climb after a lead climber.
• To transfer temporarily to alternative employment.
• To assist or support; to back.
• To agree as a second person to (a proposal), usually to reach a necessary quorum of two. (This may come from the English adjective above.)
• To accompany by singing as the second performer.

Related

Similar words

• other
• second of arc, arcsecond
• sec
• Appendix:Words used as placeholders to count seconds

Origin

• From Middle English secunde, second, secound, secund, borrowed from Old French second, seond, from Latin secundus ("following, next in order"), from root of sequor, from Proto-Indo-European *sekʷ- ("to follow"). secundo. Displaced native twoth and partially displaced native other (from Old English ōþer).
• From Middle English secunde, seconde, borrowed from Old French seconde, from Medieval Latin secunda, short for secunda pars minuta.
• From Middle French seconder, from Latin secundō ("assist, make favorable").