Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The quality of being excitable; readiness or proneness to be provoked or moved into action; the quality of being easily agitated; nervousness.
  • noun In physiology, irritability.

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

  • noun The quality of being readily excited; proneness to be affected by exciting causes.
  • noun (Physiol.) The property manifested by living organisms, and the elements and tissues of which they are constituted, of responding to the action of stimulants; irritability.

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

  • noun uncountable The state of being excitable
  • noun countable A measure of how easy something is to excite

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

  • noun excessive sensitivity of an organ or body part
  • noun being easily excited

Etymologies

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Examples

  • From what has been said, it must be evident that life is the effect of a number of external powers, constantly acting on the body, through the medium of that property which we call excitability; that it cannot exist independent of the action of these stimuli; when they are withdrawn, though the excitability does not instantly vanish, there is no life, no motion, but the semblance of death.

    Popular Lectures on Zoonomia Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease Thomas Garnett 1784

  • I shall use the term excitability, as perhaps the least liable to exception, and in using this term, it is necessary to mention that I mean only to express a fact, without the smallest intention of pointing out the nature of that property which distinguishes living from dead matter; and in this we have the illustrious example of Newton, who called that property which causes bodies in certain situations to approach each other, gravitation, without in the least hinting at its nature.

    Popular Lectures on Zoonomia Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease Thomas Garnett 1784

  • Your emotional excitability is very high and you require a lot of rest and relaxation to function properly.

    Blog De Ganz | Archive | February 2008

  • While Ageha, with her exuberance and excitability, is more than character enough to carry the romantic tension, it’s nice to see Hidaka reveal that Yukari is almost as complicated and not just a love object.

    Quick comic comments 2009

  • While Ageha, with her exuberance and excitability, is more than character enough to carry the romantic tension, it’s nice to see Hidaka reveal that Yukari is almost as complicated and not just a love object.

    November « 2009 « Precocious Curmudgeon 2009

  • While Ageha, with her exuberance and excitability, is more than character enough to carry the romantic tension, it’s nice to see Hidaka reveal that Yukari is almost as complicated and not just a love object.

    23 « November « 2009 « The Manga Curmudgeon 2009

  • She recalls his excitability: the passion with which he'd argue, all night if necessary, that the old nomadic times had been better than this city of gold where people exposed their baby daughters in the wilderness.

    The Satanic Verses Rushdie, Salman 1967

  • If we now proceed with our analysis of what is to be included in the notion of excitability, we at once discover, that the different actions which can be provoked by the influence of any external agency are essentially of three kinds.

    The World's Greatest Books — Volume 15 — Science Various 1909

  • If anything goes wrong in the process, called excitability, potentially deadly heartbeat abnormalities and epilepsies may arise.

    PhysOrg.com - latest science and technology news stories 2010

  • If anything goes wrong in the process, called excitability, potentially deadly heartbeat abnormalities and epilepsies may arise.

    PhysOrg.com - latest science and technology news stories 2010

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