Say it like this
- We need to reduce latency across the network.
- This feature has high latency issues.
- Low latency is critical for real-time performance.
Use it at work
Performance
- Latency went up after the deploy.
- p99 latency is now 800 ms.
Design
- Let's cache this to reduce latency.
- Users in Asia see high latency.
Reporting
- Latency is back to normal.
- Our target is under 200 ms latency.
Don't say this
Latency and bandwidth are different concepts. Latency is delay; bandwidth is capacity.
Don't mix it up
| Term | What it is | Who writes or uses it | When |
|---|---|---|---|
| latency | Delay for one request | Engineers | Speed per request |
| throughput | Requests handled per second | Engineers | Overall capacity |
| bandwidth | How much data can move at once | Network teams | Network size |
Practice
Try it
4 quick exercises
1. Your API is responding slowly. How do you phrase the issue?
2. Our database queries are causing _______ that is affecting user experience.
3. Which sentence uses latency incorrectly?
4. Rewrite this using latency: 'The system takes a long time to respond when users click the button.'
Say it out loud
Phrase 1 of 3
"We need to reduce latency across the network."
We don't save your recording. The word check uses your browser's speech recognition.
More about latency
Real examples(4)
- in an incident channel
"p95 latency on checkout jumped from 180 ms to 900 ms right after the 14:10 deploy, so I'm rolling back now."
- in a design review
"If we put a cache in front of the user service, we should cut read latency to under 20 ms."
- in a Slack message
"Is anyone else seeing high latency from the EU region, or is it just my connection?"
- in a customer call
"Our SLA guarantees p99 latency under 500 milliseconds for API requests."
More mistakes(2)
Handle with care. Do not confuse latency (delay in response time) with bandwidth (amount of data transferred). Latency is about speed of response, not capacity.
- ✕The server is too latency.✓The server has high latency or The server is experiencing latency issues.
Latency is a noun, not an adjective. Use latency as a noun or use the adjective form with 'high' or 'low'.
- ✕We latency the system yesterday.✓We optimized latency in the system yesterday or We reduced latency yesterday.
Latency is not typically used as a verb. Use verbs like optimize, reduce, increase, or measure with latency as the object.
Other forms(3)
- latency noun
"Network latency is affecting our user experience."
- high latency / low latency adjective
"We are seeing high latency on the database queries."
- reduce / optimize / measure latency verb phrase
"We need to reduce latency to meet our performance targets."
Often used with(7)
- high latency · Indicates slow response time or delay
- low latency · Indicates fast response time, desirable in most systems
- reduce latency · Common action taken by engineers to improve performance
- latency issue · A problem causing noticeable delays
- network latency · Delay caused by data traveling across networks
- database latency · Delay in querying or retrieving data from a database
- API latency · Response time of an API endpoint
Similar words(3)
- delay · More general term; latency is more specific to technical systems
- response time · Often used interchangeably; response time is slightly more user-focused
- lag · More casual; used in gaming and user-facing contexts
Opposites(2)
- speed
- throughput
Questions(8)
- What is latency in simple words?
- It is how long you wait. If you click a button and the page answers 200 ms later, the latency is 200 milliseconds.
- What is the difference between latency and bandwidth?
- Latency is delay: how long one piece of data takes to arrive. Bandwidth is capacity: how much data can move per second. A connection can have high bandwidth and still high latency.
- What is data latency?
- Data latency is how old data is by the time you can use it. If a dashboard updates once an hour, its data latency is up to one hour.
- What does latency mean in simple English?
- Latency is the waiting time between asking a system for something and getting the answer. If a page takes 2 seconds to respond after you click, the latency is 2 seconds. Lower latency feels faster.
- What do p95 and p99 latency mean?
- They are percentiles. p95 latency of 300 ms means 95% of requests were answered in 300 ms or faster, and the slowest 5% took longer. Teams prefer p95 and p99 to the average because the average hides slow requests.
- How do you pronounce latency?
- LAY-tuhn-see. The stress is on the first syllable, and the first vowel sounds like the a in late.
- What is a good latency?
- It depends on the product. Many web APIs aim for 100 to 200 ms. Real-time features such as video calls or games usually need under 50 ms. Teams set their own targets in an SLO or SLA.
- How do I report a latency problem in English at work?
- Give the number, the change, the time and the impact. For example: Checkout latency went from 180 ms to 900 ms at 14:10. About 5% of payments are timing out. I am checking the last deploy.
