pulse

Meanings

Noun

• A beat or throb; also, a repeated sequence of such beats or throbs.
• 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.
• 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.
• Annual leguminous plants (such as beans, lentils, and peas) yielding grains or seeds used as food for humans or animals; such a plant; a legume.
• Edible grains or seeds from leguminous plants, especially in a mature, dry condition; a specific kind of such a grain or seed.

Verb

• To emit or impel (something) in pulses or waves.
• 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 expand and contract repeatedly, like an artery when blood is flowing though it, or the heart; to beat, to throb, to vibrate, to pulsate.
• Of an activity, place, or thing: to bustle with energy and liveliness; to pulsate.

Origin

• From Late Middle English pulse, Middle English pulsen, from Latin pulsāre, the present active infinitive of pulsō, the frequentative of pellō; see further at etymology 1.
• From Middle English puls, Early Middle English pols (in compounds), possibly from Anglo-Norman pus, puz, Middle French pouls, pols, pous, and Old French pous, pou (perhaps in the sense of a gruel made from pulses), or directly from their etymon Latin puls, probably from Ancient Greek πόλτος, from Proto-Indo-European *pel- (perhaps by extension from *pel-, in the sense of something beaten).