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Excitation   /ˌɛksaɪtˈeɪʃən/   Listen
Excitation

noun
1.
The state of being emotionally aroused and worked up.  Synonyms: excitement, fervor, fervour, inflammation.  "He tried to calm those who were in a state of extreme inflammation"
2.
The neural or electrical arousal of an organ or muscle or gland.  Synonyms: innervation, irritation.
3.
Something that agitates and arouses.  Synonym: excitement.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Excitation" Quotes from Famous Books



... two windows and on a long diagonal, he accepted this slight drawback with equanimity and was about to indulge in the comfort of a cigar when he saw the scene he still held in view change, and change vividly, to the excitation of a fresh interest and a still ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green

... on its given and present level in consciousness. Its genuine meaning is in the propulsion it affords toward a higher level. It is just something to do with. Appealing to the interest upon the present plane means excitation; it means playing with a power so as continually to stir it up without directing it toward definite achievement. Continuous initiation, continuous starting of activities that do not arrive, is, for all practical purposes, as bad as the continual ...
— The Child and the Curriculum • John Dewey

... were right in addressing themselves to the task of attracting, and stimulating, the reader by means of precision, pointed antithesis, and such like attempts to induce pleasurable mental sensations, but they forgot that anyone must eventually grow weary under the influence of continuous excitation without variation. The soft drops of rain pierce the hard marble, many strokes overthrow the tallest oak, and much monotony will tire the readiest reader. Or, to use the phraseology of a somewhat more recent scientist, they "considered only those causes of force in language which ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson

... told to us in words of one syllable? Or are we men and women, able to read between the lines what Kipling intended we should read between the lines? "For some of him lived, but the most of him died." Is there not here all the excitation in the world for our sorrow, our pity, our indignation? And what more is the function of art than to excite states of consciousness complementary to the thing portrayed? The colour of tragedy is red. Must the artist also paint in the watery tears and wan-faced ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London

... throne, and, sinking his lance until the point was within a foot of the ground, remained motionless, as if expecting John's commands; while all admired the sudden dexterity with which he instantly reduced his fiery steed from a state of violent emotion and high excitation to the stillness of ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester

... as an unpolar force, beside that of gravitation. When a cylinder of soft iron is placed within a wire helix, and surrounded by an electric current, the antithesis of its two ends, or, in other words, its polar excitation, is at once manifested by its action upon a magnetic needle; and it may be asked why a cylinder of bismuth may not be substituted for the cylinder of iron, and its state similarly examined. The reason ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall

... other's eyes. Few men had dared to look at Stark thus and live; for when a man has once shed the blood of his fellow, a mania obsesses him, a disease obtains that is incurable. There is an excitation of every sense when a hunter stands up before big game; it causes a thrill and flutter of undiscovered nerves, which nothing else can conjure up, and which once lived leaves an incessant hunger. But the biggest game of all is man, and the fiercest sensation is hate. Stark had been a killer, ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach

... sleep. In contradistinction to this, there seems to be nothing in the psychology of the dream to warrant the assumption that sleep produces any but secondary changes in the conditions of the Unc. system. Hence, for the nocturnal excitation in the Force, there remains no other path than that followed by the wish excitements from the Unc. This excitation must seek reinforcement from the Unc., and follow the detours of the unconscious excitations. But what is the relation of the foreconscious ...
— Dream Psychology - Psychoanalysis for Beginners • Sigmund Freud

... justice is partly unnecessary, and partly also, so very questionably and obliquely is it usually administered, very insufficient. But even poetical justice (which I cannot help considering as a made-up example of a doctrine false in itself, and one, moreover, which by no means tends to the excitation of truly moral feelings) has not unfrequently been altogether neglected by the ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel

... the fifth-order rays, since they lie in the first level below the ether. The detector proper is a type of lamp, which gives a blue light at the ordinary intensity of such rays as would come from space or from an ordinary power plant, but gives a red light under strong excitation." ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith

... state we are in.' 'Don't be afraid,' he said; 'I will say nothing that will alarm you;' and accordingly he pronounced a trimming philippic on the Government, which, delivered as it was in an imposing manner, attired in his robes, and with the greatest energy and excitation, was prodigiously effective. While he was still speaking, the King arrived, but he did not desist even while his Majesty[1] was entering the House of Lords, nor till he approached the throne; and while the King was ascending the steps, the ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville

... to provoke the ejaculation of semen. This is finally produced by excitation of a special muscle which compresses the seminal vesicles in a spasmodic manner and ejaculates the semen by the urethra. After ejaculation, the accumulation of blood in the cavernous bodies gradually diminishes and the ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel

... saddle, as in halting, or in passing from a faster to a slower pace. Of course, for horseback exercise, the breeches must be properly cut, as otherwise they may exercise injurious pressure on the genital organs when the rider is in the saddle. Intestinal stimulation may also give rise to reflex excitation of the genital organs; for example, intestinal worms may initiate such reflex disturbance. Mantegazza[149] lays especial stress upon stimulation of the rectum, being of opinion that stimulation of this region is ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll

... the sex feelings and impulses enter into our thoughts, emotions, purposes and acts. No unbiased observer of himself or his fellows but knows that the satisfaction or non-satisfaction of the sex feeling, its excitation or its suppression are of great importance in the destinies of character. Further, man as herdsman and man as tyrant have carried on huge experiments to show how necessary to normal character ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson

... probably all instincts work both for good and ill. Flight, pugnacity, repulsion, sex—all are life-preserving or life-destroying, as the case may be. A certain degree of excitation brings life and pleasure. A stronger or weaker may bring calamity and death. The parental instinct, with the instinct of reproduction, is fundamental to life. It is the basis of tenderness and sympathy, and is likewise the foundation of jealousy and often of hatred and pugnacity. ...
— Crime: Its Cause and Treatment • Clarence Darrow

... she had undergone had tired her, and she passively waited for the thing, she knew not what, to happen. From every hand her senses snatched up and conveyed to her innumerable impressions, each of which became a dull excitation to her jaded imagination. Somewhere within her, responsive notes were answering to the things without, forgotten and undreamed-of correspondences were being renewed; and she was aware of it in an incurious ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London

... unconscious that they did fail; vainly fancying that each shaft launched hit the mark, and infatuatedly pluming herself on success, when her pride and self-complacency repelled further and further what she wished to allure—to witness this, was to be at once under ceaseless excitation and ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte

... nerve-endings, and thus initiate the essential physiological processes in the nerve of hearing. It follows that we have an instance of the conversion of one kind of vibrations, those of the air, into another kind, those of fluid, which latter furnish a sufficiently delicate stimulus or excitation of the fine hair-like extensions (processes) of the cells known as hair-cells, about which the nerves in their final ...
— Voice Production in Singing and Speaking - Based on Scientific Principles (Fourth Edition, Revised and Enlarged) • Wesley Mills

... opportunities of distinction, and Catherine Seyton's saucy eye shall rest with more respect on the distinguished soldier, than that with which she laughed to scorn the raw and inexperienced page."—There was wanting but one accessary to complete the sense of rapturous excitation, and he possessed it by being once more mounted on the back of a fiery and active horse, instead of plodding along on foot, as had been the case during the ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott

... do even in this life under strong excitation, calling up its forgotten stores. Think what its power may be in that life as a handmaid to Conscience. With all its old lumber rooms of forgotten deeds thrown open—with all the forgotten feelings of my life—boyhood, youth, manhood—open for my ...
— The Gospel of the Hereafter • J. Paterson-Smyth

... rubb'd it upon several Bodies differing as to Colour, and as to Texture, there seem'd to be some little Disparity in the excitation (if I may so call it) of Light. Upon White and Red Cloths it seem'd to succeed best, especially in comparison ...
— Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) • Robert Boyle

... do it before," she retorted. The dark excitation in her eyes, the flush of her pale cheeks, made her ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey

... a condition of the retinal end-organs in which they should be momentarily indifferent to excitation by light-waves, the hypothesis is indeed disproved, for obviously the 'three clear-cut round holes' which appeared as bright as the unobstructed background were due to a summation of the light which reached the retina during the movement, through three holes of the ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various

... be, our sensations and perceptions of material phenomena are attendant on the excitation of certain motions in the anterior parts of the brain. Whenever certain motions are excited in this substance, certain sensations and ideas of resistance, extension, &c., are either concomitant, or ensue within a period too brief for our cognisance. It is these sensations and ideas that we ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler

... stages, of which the first or opening epoch of the century, embraced in its first thirty years, was by far the most brilliant. The animation and energy which characterized it arose from the universal excitation of feeling and the mighty collision of opinions which broke out over all Europe with the first French Revolution, and the fierce struggle so long maintained almost single-handed by England against Napoleon I. The strength of that age was greatest in poetry, but ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta

... you are due to lie awake at night. Why this is so I have never been able to discover. It apparently comes from no predisposing uneasiness of indigestion, no rashness in the matter of too much tea or tobacco, no excitation of unusual incident or stimulating conversation. In fact, you turn in with the expectation of rather a good night's rest. Almost at once the little noises of the forest grow larger, blend in the hollow bigness of the first drowse; your thoughts drift idly back and ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White

... the knotter of fringe, and the worker in tambour, tapestry and embroidery. In all, the limbs or the fingers are employed mechanically; the attention of the mind is only required at intervals; and the thoughts remain for the most part in a state of non-excitation ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin

... details of the Black Mass. "It's a veritable seraglio of hystero-epileptics and erotomaniacs that he has formed for himself. But his vices lack warmth. Certainly, in the matter of contumelious blasphemies, of sacrilegious atrocities, and sensual excitation, this priest may seem to have exceeded the limits, to be almost unique. But the bloody and investuous side of the old sabbats is wanting. Docre is, we must admit, greatly inferior to Gilles de Rais. His works are incomplete, insipid; weak, ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans

... fit companions for graziers. Some stuck to cards, and though no longer deep gamblers, rather played small game than sat out. This I particularly despised. The strong impulse of gaming, alas! I had felt in my time. It is as intense as it is criminal; but it produces excitation and interest, and I can conceive how it should become a passion with strong and powerful minds. But to dribble away life in exchanging bits of painted pasteboard round a green table for the piddling concern of a few shillings, can only be excused in folly or ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott

... generous zeal in Parliament for the Constitution of his country. Such topics might be useful in the balance; yet, even then, I should have trusted to the honest hearts of Englishmen to have felt them without excitation. At present, the plain and rigid rules of justice and truth are sufficient to entitle ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter

... which is well and good in its way, but let us analyze further. What is all this but the symptoms of an extreme over-excitation and nervous disorder? The equilibrium of the organism has been overthrown and there is a wild scrambling for the restoration of that equilibrium. The choice made may be good or ill, as chance and time may dictate, but the impelling excitement forces a choice. ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London

... discovered that the most certain, as well as the most expeditious, way of making a sweet juice ferment was to add to it a little of the scum, or lees, of another fermenting juice. And it can hardly be questioned that this singular excitation of fermentation in one fluid, by a sort of infection, or inoculation, of a little ferment taken from some other fluid, together with the strange swelling, foaming, and hissing of the fermented substance, must have always attracted attention from the more thoughtful. Nevertheless, the ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley

... see." I look'd, but not Upon his face, for it was wonderful With its exceeding brightness, and the light Of the great angel mind which look'd from out The starry glowing of his restless eyes. I felt my soul grow mighty, and my spirit With supernatural excitation bound Within me, and my mental eye grew large With such a vast circumference of thought, That in my vanity I seem'd to stand Upon the outward verge and bound alone Of full beautitude. Each failing sense As with a momentary ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson

... the Daily's brigade might accomplish the marring of its gorgeous procession, and that the Signal was ready to do anything to smash the Daily's brigade. He laughed; he said he did not mind. About that time hostilities were rather acute; blood was warming, and both papers, in the excitation of rivalry, had partially lost the sense of what was due to the dignity of great organs. By chance a tremendous local football match—Knype v: Bursley—fell on the very Saturday of the procession. The rival arrangements ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett

... butchery. The Jacobins had reckoned on making the massacre universal over France. But the example was not generally followed. It required, as in the case of St. Bartholomew, the only massacre which can be compared to this in atrocity, the excitation of a large capital, in a violent crisis, ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox

... come, and moods Of calmness equally are Nature's gift: This is her glory; these two attributes Are sister horns that constitute her strength. Hence Genius, born to thrive by interchange 5 Of peace and excitation, finds in her His best and purest friend; from her receives That energy by which he seeks the truth, From her that happy stillness of the mind Which fits him to receive it when ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth



Words linked to "Excitation" :   inflammation, thrill, sensation, arousal, emotional arousal, rousing, hair-raiser, excite, innervation, unexciting, fever pitch, chiller, exciting



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