gravity-assist

1. 1.

   (spaceflight) a trajectory that passes close to a planetary body in order to gain energy from its gravitational field

   Broadertrajectory

   spaceflight

Questions about gravity-assist

What does gravity-assist mean?

gravity-assist means "(spaceflight) a trajectory that passes close to a planetary body in order to gain energy from its gravitational field".

How many syllables are in gravity-assist?

gravity-assist has 4 syllables and divides as gra-vi-ty-as-sist under the regular spelling rules. It is not in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, so that comes from how the word is written rather than from a recorded pronunciation, and no stress or phonetic transcription is claimed for it.

Is gravity-assist a common word?

gravity-assist is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.