Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To move with a slight tremulous motion; tremble, shake, or quiver.
- v. To beat with excessive rapidity; throb.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To beat or pulsate rapidly; throb; flutter or move with slight throbs (said specifically of the heart when it is characterized by an abnormal or excited movement); tremble; quiver.
Wiktionary
- v. intransitive to throb, beat strongly
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To beat rapidly and more strongly than usual; to throb; to bound with emotion or exertion; to pulsate violently; to flutter; -- said specifically of the heart when its action is abnormal, as from excitement.
WordNet 3.0
- v. shake with fast, tremulous movements
- v. cause to throb or beat rapidly
- v. beat rapidly
Etymologies
- Latin palpitāre, palpitāt-, frequentative of palpāre, to touch gently; see palpable. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The ob-gyn uses two fingers to palpitate the organs inside while pressing on the patient's abdomen from the outside, the so-called bimanual exam.”
The Wall Street Journal: Questioning the Need for Routine Pelvic Exam
“Years have made me realize, surroundings, ambiance, the drone which makes the heart palpitate, the intimacy, the interplay, the friendships one makes does go to the value of where the heart resides and stays.”
“Every thought that was devoted to it was an extreme anguish, and every word that I spoke in allusion to it caused my lips to quiver, and my heart to palpitate.”
“My husband and I just visited my son at school where the excitement and hope of things to come palpitate in every young person I met.”
The Huffington Post: Rhea Perlman: Michael Should Have a Bed of His Own
“It was a cold half-ass dribble from them bold black-swirl clouds, the kind that make the heart palpitate before the storm.”
“I am right now and it's causing my heart to palpitate!”
The Huffington Post: The Most Ridiculous Facebook Groups Of All Time (PICTURES)
“Guirgis has created characters that palpitate and suffer, characters with whom we identify.”
“In reality, the clock-hand did palpitate nervously during the Bush years, and the world is a muchhappier and safer place without him.”
Never Forget The Lessons Of Yesterday For The Sake Of Tomorrow
“You write down the name, take it home, fall in love with the piano on "Um Dia," feel your chest palpitate during "Libramor," laugh and long for the accordion flourishes on "Na Nha Rubera.”
Derek Beres: Global Beat Fusion: Talking Drums & Juju - King Sunny Ad�� in Brooklyn and More Africa
“But with my body feeling like Humpy Dumpty one second before his biggest fall, I'm trying more often than not -- at least every time I feel my heart palpitate -- to turn my clunker of a car around and drive against the traffic.”
Therese Borchard: Stress Kills: 3 Reasons Do Something About Yours...Before It's Too Late
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘palpitate’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
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7thGradeWords
horde, doggedly, retina, frail, jovial, insidious, injudicious, brazen, tentative, hortle, adaver, benign and 91 more...
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ghost
This is Ghost List 2 ( the kind that go 'boo!' ) :P
( open list )
more:
http://www.wordnik.com/lists/macabrephantom, spectral, specter, spectre, spooky, poltergeist, haunt, spirit, banshee, cryptic, shadow, phantasm and 311 more...
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Three is Compoundy.
Words that are made up of three words, be it intended for the meaning, or coincidentally (as in "attendance").
nonetheless, together, insofar, nevertheless, attendance, notwithstanding, hitherto, heretofore, whosoever, inasmuch, benjamin, psychotherapist and 40 more...
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Favorites
disparage, partisan, cupidity, hokum, tussle, odious, dastardly, overture, plane, chronic, peering, peer and 328 more...
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eggplantia5's Words
scintillate, marvel, cranberry, oscillate, triumph, bamboozle, grimace, magical, book, hexagon, cipher, compendium and 2727 more...
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GRE 3500 P
paean, pall, palliate, pallid, palpable, palpitate, paltry, pan, panache, panegyric, pantomime, paraphernalia and 93 more...
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Misc. Words.
Words I like to use, words I like but may forget.
corrosion, astonish, solace, ferment, continuum, kinesthetic, permeate, repose, caprice, cardinal, discourse, surrender and 610 more...
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Vocab++
Words as I learn them.
fetid, mezzanine, hiatus, austerity, subliminal, resplendent, implacable, impugn, debase, exiguous, cirque, holster and 2538 more...
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School Words
hagiography, antediluvian, rakish, impeccable, hackneyed, irascible, nascent, teetotaller, suffragette, amiable, expiate, turbulent and 110 more...
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p is for...
my favorite voiceless bilabial plosive.
panacea, persnickety, panache, provenance, preternatural, penumbra, perfunctory, perspicacity, potentate, pinguid, plainsong, pleonastic and 228 more...
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Papageno's Words, Pt. I
hobbledehoy, absquatulate, chthonic, prolix, ululate, internecine, verisimilitude, animadversion, concupiscence, vertiginous, cucullate, lucubrate and 1554 more...
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Underworld
Don DeLillo
roily, reverie, slidy, bandido, mohair, brilliantine, stupe, juke step, jowly, juke, wicket, quidbit and 391 more...
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spamdad's Words
lambic, weizenbock, bock, zymurgy, vade mecum, quotidian, sesquipedalian, eremite, sphragis, privation, aegis, sui generis and 275 more...
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ash
ash
abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abide, abject, abjure and 4874 more...
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itsmemandy's Words
crabwise, incognito, congeal, coagulate, incinerate, immolate, appease, acquiesce, redux, secrecy, atria, shakuhachi and 114 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for palpitate.
bilby I don't perceive it to be so new, at least not in Italian. I've heard of doctors talking about palpitating the breasts to encourage the production of milk. The sense of palpitare in terms of the heart would probably be heart massage. Then again, I'm not a medic or a composer of opera. We studied a few operatic texts in my 'Storia Della Musica' (History of Music) class but DG wasn't one of them. Dec 18, 2007
minerva So is this sense of palpitare meaning to fondle relatively new? I recall that in Mozart's Don Giovanni, Donna Elvira sings "...palpitando il cor' mi va." Dec 18, 2007
bilby Hmmm. The Italian equivalent palpitare means to massage or fondle. I remember a case of a Romanian lad who cleaned windscreens at the local traffic lights. A woman wearing a bikini-top wound down her side window one day and abused him for having the temerity to clean her glass without permission. He proceeded to reach into the vehicle and palpitate her upper torso without permission.
She screamed loud enough for the authorities to deport him. Dec 18, 2007
sionnach This could also be an admonition from Yoda to implement the Heimlich maneuver. STAT. Dec 18, 2007