/moh men"teuhm/ , n. , pl. momenta /-teuh/ , momentums .
1. force or speed of movement; impetus, as of a physical object or course of events: The car gained momentum going downhill. Her career lost momentum after two unsuccessful films.
2. Mech. a quantity expressing the motion of a body or system, equal to the product of the mass of a body and its velocity, and for a system equal to the vector sum of the products of mass and velocity of each particle in the system.
3. Philos. moment (def. 7).
[ 1690-1700; momentum; see MOMENT ]