response time

noun

By · According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA) ·

"response-time" is a 12-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“response time” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
13
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The period of time between the application of a stimulus and the associated response from a cell or tissue.

Key facts for response time
PropertyValue
Headwordresponse time
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters13
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Where “response time” sits in English frequency

response time falls outside the top-100,000 ranked English words, the long-tail zone of technical, archaic, or low-frequency vocabulary, exactly where readers second-guess spellings most.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

response time is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 4 senses are on record.

No generated misspelling entries exist for response time in our index, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.

Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct English form is response time, spelled R-E-S-P-O-N-S-E- -T-I-M-E.

Definition

  1. 1
    The period of time between the application of a stimulus and the associated response from a cell or tissue.
  2. 2
    The time taken for a person (or human-controlled system) to respond to a request.
  3. 3
    The time taken for the display of an instrument to move to a new value following a step change.
  4. 4
    The period of time between a request for a service and the associated response; typically the request is caused by a user at a terminal hitting the return key, and the response is displayed on a screen.

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "response time"?
"response time" is spelled R-E-S-P-O-N-S-E- -T-I-M-E.
What does "response time" mean?
As a noun, "response time" means: The period of time between the application of a stimulus and the associated response from a cell or tissue.
What language does "response time" come from?
"response time" is a English word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Using “response time”

The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.

  • The one correct English spelling is R-E-S-P-O-N-S-E- -T-I-M-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
  • Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source

Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list