stimulus

Borrowed from Latin stimulus (“goad, prick”)

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈstɪm.jə.ləs/

stimulus (plural stimuluses or stimuli)

1. (Can we clean up⁽⁺⁾ this sense?) Any external phenomenon that has an influence on a system, by triggering or modifying an internal phenomenon.

   an economic stimulus

   • 2012 November 7, Matt Bai, “Winning a Second Term, Obama Will Confront Familiar Headwinds”, in New York Times‎:

     Democrats, meanwhile, point out that Republicans seem to have made a conscious decision, beginning with the stimulus, to oppose anything the president put forward, dooming any chance of renewed cooperation between the parties.

2. (Can we clean up⁽⁺⁾ this sense?) (physiology) Something external that elicits or influences a physiological or psychological activity or response.
3. (Can we clean up⁽⁺⁾ this sense?) (psychology) Anything effectively impinging upon any of the sensory apparatuses of a living organism, including physical phenomena both internal and external to the body.
4. (Can we clean up⁽⁺⁾ this sense?) Anything that induces a person to take action.

• (anything that may have an impact or influence): influence
• (anything that induces a person to take action): impetus, impulse, spur

stimulus

1. conditional of stimuli

Borrowed from Latin stimulus.

• IPA^(key): /sti.my.lys/

• Audio (Paris)

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stimulus m (plural stimulus or stimuli)

1. stimulus

• “stimulus” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

From Proto-Indo-European *steyǵ- (“to pierce, prick, be sharp”). Cognate with Ancient Greek στίζω (stízō, “I mark”).

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈsti.mu.lus/, [ˈstɪ.mʊ.ɫʊs]

stimulus m (genitive stimulī); second declension

1. a goad, prick
2. a sting
3. (figuratively) stimulus, incentive

Second-declension noun.

• stimulātiō
• stimulō

• stimulus in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• stimulus in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• stimulus in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition, 1883–1887)
• stimulus in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire Illustré Latin-Français, Hachette
• Carl Meissner; Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book‎, London: Macmillan and Co.
  • to be spurred on by ambition: stimulis gloriae concitari
    
  • to spur, urge a person on: calcaria alicui adhibere, admovere; stimulos alicui admovere
    
• stimulus in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898) Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers

Probably from Latin

stimulus m (definite singular stimulusen, indefinite plural stimuli, definite plural stimuliene)

1. a stimulus

• stimulere

• “stimulus” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

Probably from Latin

stimulus m (definite singular stimulusen, indefinite plural stimuli or stimulusar, definite plural stimuliane or stimulusane)

1. a stimulus

• “stimulus” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.