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Impulse   /ˈɪmpəls/  /ɪmpˈəls/   Listen
noun
Impulse  n.  
1.
The act of impelling, or driving onward with sudden force; impulsion; especially, force so communicated as to produced motion suddenly, or immediately. "All spontaneous animal motion is performed by mechanical impulse."
2.
The effect of an impelling force; motion produced by a sudden or momentary force.
3.
(Mech.) The action of a force during a very small interval of time; the effect of such action; as, the impulse of a sudden blow upon a hard elastic body.
4.
A mental force which simply and directly urges to action; hasty inclination; sudden motive; momentary or transient influence of appetite or passion; propension; incitement; as, a man of good impulses; passion often gives a violent impulse to the will; to buy something on impulse. "These were my natural impulses for the undertaking."
Synonyms: Force; incentive; influence; motive; feeling; incitement; instigation.



verb
Impulse  v. t.  To impel; to incite. (Obs.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Impulse" Quotes from Famous Books



... disencumbered, so that it can receive and attend to the spiritual language of the Creator. [131]If, during this vacation from all mental activity, no impressions should be given to them, they say nothing. If impressions should be afforded to them, but no impulse to oral delivery, they remain equally silent. But if, on the other hand, impressions are given them, with an impulse to utterance, they deliver to the congregation as faithfully as they can, the copies of the several images, which they conceive ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume II (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson

... sexual secrecy of life is even more disastrous than such a nutritive secrecy would be; partly because we expend such a wealth of moral energy in directing or misdirecting it, partly because the sexual impulse normally develops at the same time as the intellectual impulse, not in the early years of life, when wholesome instinctive habits might be formed. And there is always some ignorant and foolish friend ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... haste of an unreasoning impulse, she went to Medland's house, full of the idea of dissociating herself from what had been done, only dimly conscious of difficulties which, if they existed, she was yet resolute to sweep away. Convention should not stand between, nor cost her a ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope

... religion," Erasmus says, "seems to have some relations to Folly, and no alliance at all to wisdom." In proof of which we are to observe; first, that "children, women, old men, and fools, led as it were by a secret impulse of nature, are always most constant in repairing to church, and most zealous, devout and attentive in the performance of the several parts of divine service "; secondly, that true Christians invite affronts by an easy forgiveness of injuries, suffer themselves ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote

... there has been no greater nor more kindly and beneficent force in modern letters. To Scott, indeed, you owed the first impulse of your genius; but, once set in motion, what miracles could it not accomplish? Our dear Porthos was overcome, at last, by a super-human burden; but your imaginative strength never found a task too great for ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang


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