pulse
/pʌls/ noun, verb
Forms pulses pulsing pulsed
- noun 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.”
- noun (metonymic, loosely) The rate of this beat as an indication of a person's health. “Her pulse was 110 at 8 a.m.”
- noun (figuratively) A beat or throb; also, a repeated sequence of such beats or throbs.
- noun (figuratively) 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.”
- noun (chiefly biology, chemistry) An (increased) amount of a substance (such as a drug or an isotopic label) given over a short time.
- noun (cooking, chiefly attributively) 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.
- noun (music, prosody) The beat or tactus of a piece of music or verse; also, a repeated sequence of such beats.
- noun A brief burst of electromagnetic energy, such as light, radio waves, etc.
- verb (transitive, also figuratively) To emit or impel (something) in pulses or waves.
- verb (transitive, chiefly biology, chemistry) 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.
- verb (transitive, cooking) To operate a food processor on (some ingredient) in short bursts, to break it up without liquidizing it.
- verb To apply an electric current or signal that varies in strength to (something).
- verb To manipulate (an electric current, electromagnetic wave, etc.) so that it is emitted in pulses.
- verb (intransitive, chiefly figuratively and literary) 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.”
- verb (intransitive, figuratively) Of an activity, place, or thing: to bustle with energy and liveliness; to pulsate.
- noun (uncountable) 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 (uncountable) Edible grains or seeds from leguminous plants, especially in a mature, dry condition; (countable) a specific kind of such a grain or seed.
Synonyms
heart rate HR autosoliton undulate pulsation pulsing impulse heartbeat beat pulse rate pulsate throb
Etymology
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)).
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.
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).
Webster’s 1913
- noun Leguminous plants, or their seeds, as beans, pease, etc. If all the world Should, in a pet of temperance, feed on pulse.
- noun The beating or throbbing of the heart or blood vessels, especially of the arteries.
- noun Any measured or regular beat; any short, quick motion, regularly repeated, as of a medium in the transmission of light, sound, etc.; oscillation; vibration; pulsation; impulse; beat; movement.
- verb To beat, as the arteries; to move in pulses or beats; to pulsate; to throb. Ray.
Etymology [OE. puls, L. puls, pultis, a thick pap or pottage made of meal, pulse, etc. See Poultice, and cf. Pousse.]
Etymology [OE. pous, OF. pous, F. pouls, fr. L. pulsus (sc. venarum), the beating of the pulse, the pulse, from pellere, pulsum, to beat, strike; cf. Gr. Appeal, Compel, Impel, Push.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “pulse”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details