How to Use rapid in a Sentence

rapid

1 of 2 adjective
Definition of rapidnext
Synonyms for rapidnext
  • There's been rapid growth in the number of new businesses in the town.
  • She carefully guided the boat through the rapid water.
  • Scientists are concerned about the rapid disappearance of the island's coral reefs.
  • The group’s rapid capture of large swaths of Iraq and Syria in 2014 shocked the world.
    — Victoria Bisset, Washington Post, 23 Mar. 2024
  • Yet in some cases, the virus takes off by rapid replication in host cells.
    — Brian Murphy, Washington Post, 15 Feb. 2024
  • Officials said the fire continued to grow at a rapid pace overnight.
    — Christian Martinez, Los Angeles Times, 16 Aug. 2023
  • Some food companies used the moment of rapid changes to pad their own profits.
    — Danielle Wiener-Bronner, CNN, 12 Oct. 2023
  • Other species may not be able to outrun the rapid changes in their habitat and could simply die off.
    — Elizabeth Rayne, Ars Technica, 14 Nov. 2023
  • It’s been a rapid ascent through the Rays system for Manzardo.
    — Tim Booth and Ronald Blum, Chicago Tribune, 9 July 2023
  • The rapid decline of comedy on the big screen is a tragedy—a minor one, but a tragedy, nonetheless.
    — Anthony Lane, The New Yorker, 15 Dec. 2023
  • This rapid change prompts the collagen and elastin in your skin to rupture, causing stretch marks to appear.
    — Phoebe Sklansky, Parents, 7 Mar. 2024
  • The 911 call prompted a rapid response by Mobile police.
    — John Sharp | [email protected], al, 9 Sep. 2023
  • The town has seen rapid growth in cruise traffic since the pandemic, with a handful of cruise lines visiting.
    — Alex Demarban, Anchorage Daily News, 16 June 2023
  • This was a year of rapid — and sometimes confusing — change for tenants and landlords.
    — Paloma Esquivel, Los Angeles Times, 28 Dec. 2023
  • Global sea levels are also on the rise, driven mainly by the rapid melting of ice sheets and glaciers.
    — Ritu Prasad, CNN, 4 Apr. 2024
  • This is when water pours over a dam’s rim, triggering very rapid erosion of the structure’s front side.
    — Lauren Leffer, Scientific American, 15 Sep. 2023
  • And so, everyone’s sharpened those skills quite a bit at rapid adjustment over the past few years.
    — Michael Schneider, Variety, 24 Sep. 2023
  • Since its rapid rise in 2020, TikTok has secured a spot as one of the most popular predictors of trends.
    — Merrell Readman, Travel + Leisure, 9 Jan. 2024
  • Signs include shortness of breath, hives, rapid heartbeat, nausea, confusion, and swelling of the face, tongue, or throat.
    — Michael Menna, Verywell Health, 9 Oct. 2023
  • In the last three months, the kitten has already seen rapid development, now weighing 6 1/2 pounds — about five times his birth weight.
    — Grace Toohey, Los Angeles Times, 12 Dec. 2023
  • The potential cash crunch at Selfridges is just one element of the fallout from the rapid collapse of the Signa empire.
    — Libby Cherry, Fortune Europe, 29 Dec. 2023
  • That prompted the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates at a rapid pace.
    — Marley Jay, NBC News, 12 Oct. 2023
  • According to the filing, the rapid depressurization ripped a shirt off a boy and sucked cellphones out the aircraft.
    — Leo Sands, Washington Post, 22 Jan. 2024
  • The rapid switch from drive-by to date night was by criminal design, the prosecutor told jurors.
    — Harriet Ryan, Los Angeles Times, 28 Feb. 2024
  • Dan Fink, another Sandy resident, echoed Couche’s fear of rapid fire growth.
    — Kayla Nguyen, oregonlive, 28 Aug. 2023
  • Just as a rapid rise in interest rates knocked the stock market lower in 2022, the expectation for lower rates this year has formed part of the case for stocks to rise.
    — Joe Rennison, New York Times, 22 Mar. 2024
  • This rapid movement leads to powerful winds that can create a spinning column of air.
    — Margaret Osborne, Smithsonian Magazine, 4 Aug. 2023
  • Europe’s rapid build-out of wind and solar power is being driven by the war in Ukraine and efforts to abandon Russian oil and gas.
    — David Gelles, New York Times, 30 Nov. 2023
  • Despite the rapid success, the Offspring didn’t make the immediate jump to arenas, nor were the members quick to leave their daily lives behind.
    — Daniel Kohn, Los Angeles Times, 8 Apr. 2024
  • Our tester loved the smart vortex cleaning system, which uses rapid rotation and water to flush away hair and debris after use.
    — Lindsay Modglin, Verywell Health, 8 Apr. 2024
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rapid

2 of 2 noun
  • The whirlpool rapids at the bottom of the fall can reach 30mph.
    — Currie Engel, Time, 10 July 2019
  • Suddenly the crack of a firearm echoed above the rapids.
    — Larry Rohter, Smithsonian Magazine, 3 Apr. 2023
  • The Smokey Falls full-day trip gives the biggest thrill, with class 3 and 4 rapids.
    — Chelsey Lewis, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 16 May 2018
  • The two men were marooned in the middle of the river's rapids after the scow got stuck on rocks in the stream.
    — Doha Madani, NBC News, 3 Nov. 2019
  • As the tide goes out, the rapids flow in the opposite direction.
    — Walter Nicklin, Washington Post, 27 June 2019
  • In such an age, Mr. Trump—one of history’s plungers—shoots the rapids.
    — Lance Morrow, WSJ, 22 June 2018
  • And the leader of the trip, Norm Nevills, is looking at the river to see how to get through these rapids.
    — Brianne Kane, Scientific American, 5 June 2023
  • Hamilton and his roommate are just two of many who have been wronged by the rapid.
    — Zoya Qureshi, The Atlantic, 29 Dec. 2022
  • The rapids above the falls reach a maximum speed of 25 mph, while the fastest speeds — 68 mph — occur at the falls themselves.
    — Eric Todisco, PEOPLE.com, 9 July 2019
  • A few hours later, Dall sheep watch us splash through rapids from the grandstand of canyon walls.
    — Christopher Solomon, New York Times, 13 Sep. 2019
  • With waterfalls and rapids blocking the path, the whale can’t get too far up the river.
    — Angela Fritz, Washington Post, 14 June 2017
  • Some rushed through the final rapids, while others got hung up on the rocks, got pushed to the side, or capsized.
    — Annie Gentile, Courant Community, 23 Apr. 2018
  • My tent was pitched on the edge of a cliff, directly overhanging the rapids.
    — Arthur Hart, idahostatesman, 23 Mar. 2018
  • Grab one or simply float on your own down this series of small rapids in the middle of town.
    — Brent Crane, Outside Online, 1 July 2018
  • Other times, your tipsy little craft defies the odds and makes it through the rapids.
    — Mary Carole McCauley, baltimoresun.com, 13 Dec. 2019
  • Waterspouts twist across the surface of the lake, while the island’s uneven dirt paths turn to rapids.
    — Evan Ackerman, IEEE Spectrum, 28 May 2019
  • No appointments are required for the free rapid and PCR tests.
    — Sarah Ladd, The Courier-Journal, 22 Jan. 2022
  • Paddling a Bellyak through rapids requires a lot of upper body strength.
    — Jen Murphy, WSJ, 18 Aug. 2017
  • The ride was perfect, with the gentlest rapids and the only soundtrack coming from the water and birds around me.
    — Stephanie Stephens, Los Angeles Times, 22 Feb. 2023
  • On the other side of the globe last week, winding Hong Kong streets became surging rapids.
    — Theodora Yu, Washington Post, 14 Sep. 2023
  • With fewer strong flows to whisk this debris away, more of it is piling up at those bends and rapids.
    — Raymond Zhong, New York Times, 6 June 2023
  • This becomes clear about 45 minutes after scouting Warm Springs, when one of the guides gets caught in a hole toward the end of the rapid.
    — Rachel Walker, Washington Post, 4 Aug. 2022
  • While on a camping trip, Kali fell into the Rebecca Falls rapids and was swept away.
    — Southern Living, 1 Dec. 2016
  • In 4th was Nakamura, who had improved his standing from the rapids with his blitz play, but just not enough.
    — Chris Chase, BostonGlobe.com, 23 June 2018
  • In 1918, a barge-like vessel broke free from its tugboat and got lodged in the shallow rapids above Niagara Falls.
    — Brigit Katz, Smithsonian, 6 Nov. 2019
  • Stronger currents can produce rapids like the ones near the North Avenue bridge on the Milwaukee River.
    — Drew Dawson, Journal Sentinel, 27 July 2023
  • Behind Xiong, the Nu River flows freely, bumbling with rapids, swirling with eddies.
    — National Geographic, 12 May 2016
  • But West managed to safely hoist the boy into the helicopter and away from the rapids that forced him and his father atop a boulder.
    — Paul Davenport, The Seattle Times, 24 July 2017
  • The Chattahoochee’s rapids are now used for white water rafting.
    — Noah Robertson, The Christian Science Monitor, 17 Aug. 2023
  • At first, this force is strong like rapids, flooding everything.
    — Angela Garbes, Health.com, 29 May 2018

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'rapid.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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