Horizontal logarithmic scale marked with units of time. A millisecond (from milli-and second; symbol: ms) is a thousandth (0.001 or 10 −3 or 1 / 1,000) of a second. 10 milliseconds (a hundredth of a second) are called a centisecond. 100 milliseconds (one tenth of a second) are called a decisecond. To help compare orders of magnitude of different times, this page lists times between 10−3 seconds and 10 0 seconds (1 milli second and one second). See also times of other orders of magnitude.