stimulate

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin stimulātus (“goaded, urged”), the past participle of stimulō (“to prick, goad, urge”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} or from its participial stem,^[7][8][9] from stimulus (“goad, spur”), which English also borrowed as a noun.^[7][3][10] Barnhart thinks the verb was probably a back-formation from stimulation, perhaps partly borrowed from the Latin participle.^[11][12] The Latin noun is related to stilus (“pointed writing instrument”), the source of style,^[11] and Ayto traces it probably to an Indo-European base Proto-Indo-European *sti- (“point, prick, pierce”), extended forms of which lie behind stick and stitch.^[10] The OED compares French stimuler (14th century), Spanish estimular, Portuguese estimular and Italian stimolare.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

To prick, sting or afflict: 1548, in Hall's Union,^[7] a rare sense recorded only in the mid 16th century.^[8][9][13] Barnhart dates this sense to before 1548,^[11] Dictionary.com to 1540–50,^[6] and Merriam-Webster gives 1566 as the first known use of the main sense.^[14]

Semantic evolution

The literal sense of the Latin, pricking with a goad, soon gave way in English to the figurative one: from 1619 the verb meant to rouse a person to action as if by goading, to spur on or stir up.^[7][11] Etymonline dates "goad, excite, or rouse to action" to the 1610s.^[2] Johnson (1755) gave three senses: to prick, to prick forward or excite by some sharp motive, and in medicine to excite a quick sensation.^[15] The physiological sense, to quicken the action of an organ, is recorded from 1662 in the OED and by 1707 in Etymonline,^[7][2] and the narrower one of exciting a tissue to its specific activity from 1879.^[7] In the 19th century the verb also meant to take alcoholic stimulants, a use the OED calls colloquial and perhaps American;^[7] Green's dictionary finds it as American slang for drinking from 1839, and Let us stimulate as an invitation to drink.^[16]

Timeline

• 1548 – to prick, sting, afflict (obsolete).^[7]
• 1566 – first known use of the main sense in Merriam-Webster.^[14]
• 1619 – to rouse to action or exertion; to spur on.^[7][11]
• 1662 – physiology: to excite an organ to greater activity.^[7]
• 1800 – to drink alcoholic stimulants.^[7]
• 1839 – American slang, to drink alcohol.^[16]
• 1879 – to excite a tissue to its specific activity.^[7]
• 1905 – to administer stimulants to.^[7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To rouse to activity, growth or greater effort; to encourage something to begin or develop further: Lower taxes were meant to stimulate investment.^[17][14][7]
2. To fill a person with ideas or enthusiasm; to excite or interest: She was stimulated by the debate.^[17][14]
3. (physiology) To act as a stimulus on a nerve, organ or tissue, quickening its activity.^[17][14][7]
4. (obsolete, 1548) To prick or sting.^[7][8][15]

Word family

• stimulater
• stimulatingly
• stimulation
• stimulative
• stimulator
• stimulatory
• stimulable
• interstimulate

Related words

• stimulant
• stimulus
• style
• stick
• stitch

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
11. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
12. ^ Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
13. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
15. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
16. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
17. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins