Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Tending to excite; stimulating.
  • noun An agent or stimulus that excites; a stimulant.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Tending to excite; exciting.
  • noun That which excites or rouses to action or increased action; specifically, in therapeutics, whatever produces, or is fitted to produce, increased action in any part of a living organism.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Tending to excite; exciting.
  • noun (Physiol.) An agent or influence which arouses vital activity, or produces increased action, in a living organism or in any of its tissues or parts; a stimulant.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective exciting; stimulating
  • noun Something that excites or stimulates; a stimulant

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a drug that temporarily quickens some vital process
  • adjective (of drugs e.g.) able to excite or stimulate

Etymologies

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Examples

  • It places the physical symptoms of the emotions at the very beginning, and considers them the direct effects of the external excitant, which is expressed by this elegant formula: "It used to be said, 'I perceive a danger; I am frightened, I tremble.'

    The Mind and the Brain Being the Authorised Translation of L'Âme et le Corps Alfred Binet 1884

  • Obsoleto, intempestivo, turpi remedio fatentur se uti; recordatione pristinarum voluptatum se recreant, et adversante natura, pollinctam carnetn et enectam excitant.

    Anatomy of Melancholy 2007

  • It is somewhat tart, I grant it; acriora orexim excitant embammata, as he said, sharp sauces increase appetite,

    Anatomy of Melancholy 2007

  • Fraenaet stimuli animi, velut in mari quaedam aurae leves, quaedam placidae, quaedam turbulentae: sic in corpore quaedam affectiones excitant tantum, quaedam ita movent, ut de statu judicii depellant.

    Anatomy of Melancholy 2007

  • Aden from the interior, and largely used, especially by the Arabs, as a pleasurable excitant.

    First footsteps in East Africa 2003

  • Joe Marley said that's only Acacia nilotica, which is taken as a digestive excitant and to prevent hunger and thirst on raids.

    Freedoms Challenge McCaffrey, Anne 1998

  • They were there, I think, looking for something Olympian—not stars, maybe, but at least beautiful people, and beauty, not fellatio, was to have been the excitant.

    film flam Larry McMurtry 1987

  • They were there, I think, looking for something Olympian—not stars, maybe, but at least beautiful people, and beauty, not fellatio, was to have been the excitant.

    film flam Larry McMurtry 1987

  • They were there, I think, looking for something Olympian—not stars, maybe, but at least beautiful people, and beauty, not fellatio, was to have been the excitant.

    film flam Larry McMurtry 1987

  • Bill, the effeminate to whom fear was an excitant, spoke with glee from the shadows where he was invisible, but his bed creaked as he bounded up and down on it.

    The Tiger in the Smoke Allingham, Margery, 1904-1966 1952

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