VL -Thanks for yours.
I'm not arguing with the definition of the term from the dictionary, what I am trying to do is make us think about what we really want when we say it.
Take an example loosely from G W-H's information.
Consider an aircraft is climbing at its most economic/comfortable/whatever speed, which is 40 kts faster than its best ANGLE speed but 40 kts slower than its best RATE of climb speed.
You now decide that to get a quicker cross with traffic which may be 15 miles from conflict you ask him to expedite, which by your definition means climb at max RATE. To achieve this he is going to accelerate by 40 kts to achieve his max rate. This takes him closer to the conflict before achieving any appreciable effect.
If, however, he climbs at max ANGLE, he will slow down and improve his flightpath angle, all without shortening the distance to conflict any more than necessary.
I know which I would rather have.
(By the way, I don't know whether there would be as much as an 80 kt difference between the two speeds. It's just for illustration!)
If you look at it graphically with distance on the bottom axis and altitude on the vertical axis, what we want is for the aircraft to achieve as high a level as possible in the shortest distance. The line that plots this may well be steeper than the one which achieves a higher level in the shortest time. It is the first (max ANGLE) line which is what we want. We want the aircraft at a certain level by a certain place, not necessarily by a certain time (although we may think we mean time (maybe by using Vector Lines!
)).