pulse
Annual leguminous plants (such as beans, lentils, and peas) yielding grains or seeds used as food for humans or animals; (countable) such a plant; a legume.
Noun medicine, physiology
- A normally regular beat felt when arteries near the skin (for example, at the neck or wrist) are depressed, caused by the heart pumping blood through them; the qualitative nature of this beat.
- Her pulse was thready and weak.
- The rate of this beat as an indication of a person's health.
- Her pulse was 110 at 8 a.m.
- [A] Pulſe which is ſlow and large denotes ſufficient remains of ſtrength, tenſion, and thickneſs of the fibres of the heart and arteries, and a viſcid and tenacious blood. All unequal Pulſes are very bad, ſince they...
- [M]y experience is that men may enjoy better health, do more work, have clearer brains, a steadier pulse, and go on to old age better without alcohol than with. - 1870 May 21, Thomas Cash, “United Kingdom Band of Hope...
Synonyms: heart rate HR
Hypernyms: rate
- A beat or throb; also, a repeated sequence of such beats or throbs.
- When the ear receives any ſimple ſound, it is ſtruck by a ſingle pulſe of the air, which makes the ear-drum and the other membranous parts vibrate according to the nature and ſpecies of the ſtroke. - 1756 (date...
- I roved at random through the town, / [...] / And caught once more the distant shout, / The measured pulse of racing oars / Among the willows; [...] - 1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto LXXXV”, in In Memoriam,...
- The focus of energy or vigour of an activity, place, or thing; also, the feeling of bustle, busyness, or energy in a place; the heartbeat.
- You can really feel the pulse of the city in this district.
- An (increased) amount of a substance (such as a drug or an isotopic label) given over a short time.
- A setting on a food processor which causes it to work in a series of short bursts rather than continuously, in order to break up ingredients without liquidizing them; also, a use of this setting.
- The beat or tactus of a piece of music or verse; also, a repeated sequence of such beats.
- A brief burst of electromagnetic energy, such as light, radio waves, etc.
- A thin ruby crystal is illuminated by two successive intense short pulses of coherent light, t seconds apart, obtained from a ruby-laser source. As expected, the crystal will transmit the two pulses t seconds apart. But...
- Synonym of autosoliton (“a stable solitary localized structure that arises in nonlinear spatially extended dissipative systems due to mechanisms of self-organization”).
Synonyms: autosoliton
- A brief increase in the strength of an electrical signal; an impulse.
- A timed, coordinated connection, when multiple public transportation vehicles are at a hub at the same time so that passengers can flexibly connect between them.
Origin
From Late Middle English pulse, Middle English pous, pouse (“regular beat of arteries, pulse; heartbeat; place on the body where a pulse is detectable; beat (of a musical instrument); energy, vitality”) [and other forms], from Anglo-Norman puls, pous, pus, and Middle French pouls, poulz, pous [and other forms], Old French pous, pulz (“regular beat of arteries; place on the body where a pulse is detectable”) (modern French pouls), and from their etymon Latin pulsus (“beat, impulse, pulse, stroke; regular beat of arteries or the heart”), from pellō (“to drive, impel, propel, push; to banish, eject, expel; to set in motion; to strike”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *pel- (“to beat, strike; to drive; to push, thrust”)) + -sus (a variant of -tus (suffix forming action nouns from verbs)).
Forms
Related
impulse repulse pulsion pulsive arrhythmia blood pressure heartbeat meter tempo
Derived
aeropulse afterpulse anthropulse apulse a pussy and a pulse attopulse chirped-pulse amplification electromagnetic pulse electropulse finger on the pulse have one's finger on the pulse have one's fingers on the pulse interpulse intrapulse macropulse micropulse monopulse multipulse nanopulse nonpulse nuclear magnetic pulse nuclear-pulse rocket overpulse oxygen pulse
Noun Entry 2
- Annual leguminous plants (such as beans, lentils, and peas) yielding grains or seeds used as food for humans or animals; (countable) such a plant; a legume.
- Wild nuts, peas, vetch, a legume which had edible seed pods, and grasses were often combined with pulses like beans or lentils, the most commonly identified ingredient, and at times, wild mustard. To make the plants...
- Edible grains or seeds from leguminous plants, especially in a mature, dry condition; (countable) a specific kind of such a grain or seed.
Origin
From Middle English puls (“(collectively) seeds of a leguminous plant used as food; leguminous plants collectively; a species of leguminous plant”), Early Middle English pols (in compounds), possibly from Anglo-Norman pus, puz, Middle French pouls, pols, pous, and Old French pous, pou (“gruel, mash, porridge”) (perhaps in the sense of a gruel made from pulses), or directly from their etymon Latin puls (“meal (coarse-ground edible part of various grains); porridge”), probably from Ancient Greek πόλτος (póltos, “porridge made from flour”), from Proto-Indo-European *pel- (“dust; flour”) (perhaps by extension from *pel- (“to beat, strike; to drive; to push, thrust”), in the sense of something beaten).
Forms
Verb
- To emit or impel (something) in pulses or waves.
- Though a light of love she swimmeth, / Zoned with utterless desire, / And the air of her swift coming / Through thy hot veins pulseth fire. - 1850, W[illiam] C[ox] Bennett, “The Shadow-hunted”, in Poems, London: Chapman...
- Rapidly rotating dead stars, pulsars are so named because as they spin, they release beams of electromagnetic radiation across space that appear to pulse like celestial lighthouses. - 2023 August 30, Ashley Strickland,...
- To give to (something, especially a cell culture) an (increased) amount of a substance, such as a drug or an isotopic label, over a short time.
- To operate a food processor on (some ingredient) in short bursts, to break it up without liquidizing it.
- To apply an electric current or signal that varies in strength to (something).
- To manipulate (an electric current, electromagnetic wave, etc.) so that it is emitted in pulses.
- To expand and contract repeatedly, like an artery when blood is flowing though it, or the heart; to beat, to throb, to vibrate, to pulsate.
- Hot blood pulsed through my veins as I grew angrier.
- The streets were dark, and all that could be seen was light pulsing from the disco.
- As pulseth in thy northern skies / Th' Aurora—so, in ecstasies, / Through starry maze, my spirit flies; [...] - 1849, A[ndrew] J[ames] Symington, “To Mademoiselle Jenny Lind”, in Harebell Chimes: Or Summer Memories and...
Synonyms: undulate
- Of an activity, place, or thing: to bustle with energy and liveliness; to pulsate.
- There is a dangerous censoriousness pulsing through American society. In small towns and big cities alike, would-be commissars are fighting, in the name of a distinct minority of Americans, to stifle open discussion and...
- The emotion had pulsed from the outset, the Ukraine players emerging from the tunnel with blue and yellow flags around their shoulders; the rendition of their anthem seeing eyes well up. - 2023 March 26, David Hytner,...
Origin
From Late Middle English pulse, Middle English pulsen (“to pulse, throb”), from Latin pulsāre, the present active infinitive of pulsō (“to push; to beat, batter, hammer, strike; to knock on; (figuratively) to drive or urge on, impel; to move; to agitate, disquiet, disturb”), the frequentative of pellō (“to drive, impel, propel, push; to banish, eject, expel; to set in motion; to strike”); see further at etymology 1. Doublet of push.
Forms
Related
pulsate pulsating pulsation pulsative pulsator pulsatory pulser