different between pulse vs impulse

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /p?ls/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /p?ls/, [p?ls]
• (Canada) IPA^(key): /p?ls/, /p?ls/

Etymology 1

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 pell? (“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)).

Noun

pulse (plural pulses)

1. (physiology)
   1. 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.
   2. The nature or rate of this beat as an indication of a person's health.
2. (figuratively) A beat or throb; also, a repeated sequence of such beats or throbs.
3. (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.

4. (chiefly biology, chemistry) An (increased) amount of a substance (such as a drug or an isotopic label) given over a short time.
5. (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.
6. (music, prosody) The beat or tactus of a piece of music or verse; also, a repeated sequence of such beats.
7. (physics)
   1. A brief burst of electromagnetic energy, such as light, radio waves, etc.
   2. Synonym of autosoliton (“a stable solitary localized structure that arises in nonlinear spatially extended dissipative systems due to mechanisms of self-organization”)
   3. (also electronics) A brief increase in the strength of an electrical signal; an impulse.

Derived terms

Related terms

• impulse
• repulse
• pulsion
• pulsive

Translations

See also

• (physiology): arrhythmia, blood pressure, heartbeat
• (music, prosody): meter, tempo

Etymology 2

From Late Middle English pulse, Middle English pulsen (“to pulse, throb”), from Latin puls?re, the present active infinitive of puls? (“to push; to beat, batter, hammer, strike; to knock on; to pulsate; (figuratively) to drive or urge on, impel; to move; to agitate, disquiet, disturb”), the frequentative of pell? (“to drive, impel, propel, push; to banish, eject, expel; to set in motion; to strike”); see further at etymology 1.

Verb

pulse (third-person singular simple present pulses, present participle pulsing, simple past and past participle pulsed)

1. (transitive, also figuratively) To emit or impel (something) in pulses or waves.
2. (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.
3. (transitive, cooking) To operate a food processor on (some ingredient) in short bursts, to break it up without liquidizing it.
4. (transitive, electronics, physics)
   1. To apply an electric current or signal that varies in strength to (something).
   2. To manipulate (an electric current, electromagnetic wave, etc.) so that it is emitted in pulses.
5. (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.

   Synonym: undulate
6. (intransitive, figuratively) Of an activity, place, or thing: to bustle with energy and liveliness; to pulsate.

Conjugation

Derived terms

• pulsed (adjective)
• pulser
• pulsing (adjective, noun)

Related terms

Translations

Etymology 3

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 ?????? (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).

Noun

pulse (countable and uncountable, plural pulses)

2. (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.
3. (uncountable) Edible grains or seeds from leguminous plants, especially in a mature, dry condition; (countable) a specific kind of such a grain or seed.

Translations

References

Further reading

• pulse on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• pulse (physics) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• pulse (signal processing) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• pulse (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• legume on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• pulse in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• pulse in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• Richard DeLone [et al.] (1975) , Gary E. Wittlich, editor, Aspects of Twentieth-century Music, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, ?ISBN

Anagrams

• Lepus, Plues, pules, pusle

Dutch

Verb

pulse

1. (archaic) singular present subjunctive of pulsen

Latin

Participle

pulse

1. vocative masculine singular of pulsus

Portuguese

Verb

pulse

1. first-person singular present subjunctive of pulsar
2. third-person singular present subjunctive of pulsar
3. first-person singular imperative of pulsar
4. third-person singular imperative of pulsar

Spanish

Verb

pulse

1. Formal second-person singular (usted) imperative form of pulsar.
2. First-person singular (yo) present subjunctive form of pulsar.
3. Formal second-person singular (usted) present subjunctive form of pulsar.
4. Third-person singular (él, ella, also used with usted^?) present subjunctive form of pulsar.

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Middle French impulser, from Latin impulsus.

For spelling, as in pulse, the -e (on -lse) is so the end is pronounced /ls/, rather than /lz/ as in pulls, and does not change the vowel (‘u’). Compare else, false, convulse.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??mp?ls/
• Hyphenation: im?pulse

Noun

impulse (plural impulses)

1. A thrust; a push; a sudden force that impels.
   • c. 1715-1716, Samuel Clarke, letter to Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

     All spontaneous animal motion is performed by mechanical impulse.

2. A wish or urge, particularly a sudden one prompting action.
   • 1692?, John Dryden, Sylvae (translations), Preface

     These were my natural impulses for the undertaking.
3. (physics) The integral of force over time.

   The total impulse from the impact will depend on the kinetic energy of the projectile.

Derived terms

• impulse buy
• nerve impulse
• on impulse

Related terms

• impel
• impulsion
• impulsive
• impulsively
• impulsiveness
• impulsivity
• impulsor
• pulse

Translations

Verb

impulse (third-person singular simple present impulses, present participle impulsing, simple past and past participle impulsed)

1. (obsolete) To impel; to incite.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Alexander Pope to this entry?)

References

• impulse in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• impulse in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• Douglas Harper (2001–2021) , “impulse”, in Online Etymology Dictionary

French

Pronunciation

• Homophones: impulsent, impulses

Verb

impulse

1. first-person singular present indicative of impulser
2. third-person singular present indicative of impulser
3. first-person singular present subjunctive of impulser
4. third-person singular present subjunctive of impulser
5. second-person singular imperative of impulser

Italian

Verb

impulse

1. third-person singular past historic of impellere

Latin

Participle

impulse

1. vocative masculine singular of impulsus

Spanish

Noun

impulse m (plural impulses)

1. push, shove

Verb

impulse

1. First-person singular (yo) present subjunctive form of impulsar.
2. Formal second-person singular (usted) present subjunctive form of impulsar.
3. Third-person singular (él, ella, also used with usted^?) present subjunctive form of impulsar.