STIMULUS • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Stimulus

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/stˈɪmjələs/ Listen

noun

Stimulus n. (pl. stimuli)

A goad; hence, something that rouses the mind or spirits; an incentive; as, the hope of gain is a powerful stimulus to labor and action.

That which excites or produces a temporary increase of vital action, either in the whole organism or in any of its parts; especially (Physiol.), any substance or agent capable of evoking the activity of a nerve or irritable muscle, or capable of producing an impression upon a sensory organ or more particularly upon its specific end organ. Note: Of the stimuli applied to the sensory apparatus, physiologists distinguish two kinds: (a) Homologous stimuli, which act only upon the end organ, and for whose action the sense organs are especially adapted, as the rods and cones of the retina for the vibrations of the either. (b) Heterologous stimuli, which are mechanical, chemical, electrical, etc., and act upon the nervous elements of the sensory apparatus along their entire course, producing, for example, the flash of light beheld when the eye is struck.

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Etymology of 'Stimulus'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Stimulus" Quotes from Famous Books

... full of hope on the very same grounds which, to-morrow, afford us no hope at all: every human being is liable to those flows and ebbs of the mind; but, if reason interfere, and bid you overcome the fits of lassitude, and almost mechanically to go on without the stimulus of hope, the buoyant fit speedily returns; you congratulate yourself that you did not yield to the temptation to abandon your pursuit, and you proceed with more vigour than ever. Five or six triumphs over temptation to indolence or despair lay the foundation of certain success; ...

— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett

... everybody, and a fortune for the picking up. And all the world, with Spain in the van, prepared to move on El Dorado. A whiff of the fresh Western air blew in all nostrils, and re-animated the moribund body of civilization. The stimulus of Columbus' achievement was felt in every condition of human life and phase of human activity. Mankind once more saw a future, and bound up its loins to take advantage of it. Literature felt the electric touch, and blossomed in the ...

— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various

... distinction between faculty and instinct corresponds in some degree to that between perception of a stimulus and a specific reaction. I imagine that the author would have said that the sensitiveness to light possessed by a plant is faculty, while instinct decides whether the plant curves to or from the source ...

— The Foundations of the Origin of Species - Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844 • Charles Darwin

... The fainting fits, incident to the disease, had begun to show themselves. I required, it was said, to break through the usual routine of my life, to relinquish for some time my sedentary habits, and seek a complete change of air and scene, in order to give me that stimulus and energy that my tropical nature required, and which it had lost in the cold and misty atmosphere of Paris. My husband did not hesitate one moment between the hope of prolonging my life and the happiness of keeping me near him. As he could ...

— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine

... other navies, only a limited amount of interest in the submarine question. Increased appropriations for the construction of submarine boats which were then beginning to become more frequent in other countries acted, however, as a stimulus at this time. ...

— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot

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