An Etymological Dictionary of Astronomy and Astrophysics

The rate of change of the position of an object that is traveling along a straight path.
In other words, the velocity of an object when its moving direction is not changing. For a given → angular velocity (ω), the linear velocity v of the particle is directly proportional to the distance of the particle from the center of the circular path: v = ω ×r.

See also: → linear; → velocity.