Definitions

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

  • noun A state of equilibrium, as in an organism or cell, maintained by self-regulating processes.

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

  • noun The ability and tendency of certain systems to maintain a relatively constant internal state in spite of changes in external conditions; this ability is achieved by the presence of feedback mechanisms which can adjust the state of the system to compensate for changes in the state caused by the external environment. It is exemplified in homeothermal biological systems, such as animals which maintain relatively constant blood temperature and composition in spite of variations in external temperature or the composition of the food ingested.

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

  • noun physiology The ability of a system or living organism to adjust its internal environment to maintain a stable equilibrium; such as the ability of warm-blooded animals to maintain a constant temperature.
  • noun Such a dynamic equilibrium or balance.

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

  • noun (physiology) metabolic equilibrium actively maintained by several complex biological mechanisms that operate via the autonomic nervous system to offset disrupting changes

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Coined from Ancient Greek ὅμος (hómos, "similar") + ιστημι (histēmi, "standing still")/stasis (from στάσις) by Walter Bradford Cannon.

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Examples

  • Cannon (1932) applied the term homeostasis (coined by 18th-century physician Claude Bernard) to this powerful self-regulating capability.

    Stress and the Manager KARL ALBRECHT 1979

  • Cannon (1932) applied the term homeostasis (coined by 18th-century physician Claude Bernard) to this powerful self-regulating capability.

    Stress and the Manager KARL ALBRECHT 1979

  • Cannon (1932) applied the term homeostasis (coined by 18th-century physician Claude Bernard) to this powerful self-regulating capability.

    Stress and the Manager KARL ALBRECHT 1979

  • Explain the meaning of the term homeostasis and give an example of a typical homeostatic mechanism.

    Recently Uploaded Slideshows 2009

  • When metabolism goes down and stress goes down, then your self-repair mechanisms, which are physical mechanisms in your biology, they get activated, because stress interferes with the spontaneous self-repair mechanisms, or what we call homeostasis, in the body.

    CNN Transcript Nov 13, 2007 2007

  • When metabolism goes down and stress goes down, then your self-repair mechanisms, which are physical mechanisms in your biology, they get activated, because stress interferes with the spontaneous self-repair mechanisms, or what we call homeostasis, in the body.

    CNN Transcript Nov 13, 2007 2007

  • Putting it in simple words, the homeostatic systems (The term homeostasis was first used by Walter Bradford Cannon in the beginning of 20th Century, to describe the maintenance of constancy in the physical

    Recently Uploaded Slideshows adityagawade 2010

  • The natural ability of the body to balance internal and external stress is called homeostasis.

    Dr. Bertrand Babinet, Ph.D., LAc.: Adaptogen Herbs: The Key to Longevity and Optimal Health Dr. Bertrand Babinet 2011

  • The natural ability of the body to balance internal and external stress is called homeostasis.

    Dr. Bertrand Babinet, Ph.D., LAc.: Adaptogen Herbs: The Key to Longevity and Optimal Health Dr. Bertrand Babinet 2011

  • The natural ability of the body to balance internal and external stress is called homeostasis.

    Dr. Bertrand Babinet, Ph.D., LAc.: Adaptogen Herbs: The Key to Longevity and Optimal Health Dr. Bertrand Babinet 2011

  • The term homeostasis was introduced in 1926 by a physiologist named Walter B. Cannon, who showed in his book The Wisdom of the Body that we have built-in mechanisms to regulate our temperature, as well as our levels of oxygen, water, salt, sugar, protein, fat, and calcium.

    How to Want Less Arthur C. Brooks 2022

Comments

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  • "In the late nineteen-twenties, the physiologist Walter Cannon coined the term “homeostasis”—joining together the Greek homoios (similar) and stasis (stillness). The capacity to sustain internal constancy was an essential feature of an organism, he argued."

    -- "My Father’s Body, at Rest and in Motion" by Siddhartha Mukherjee (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/01/08/my-fathers-body-at-rest-and-in-motion)

    January 4, 2018