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Stimulant   Listen
noun
Stimulant  n.  
1.
That which stimulates, provokes, or excites. "His feelings had been exasperated by the constant application of stimulants."
2.
(Physiol. & Med.) An agent which produces a temporary increase of vital activity in the organism, or in any of its parts; sometimes used without qualification to signify an alcoholic beverage used as a stimulant.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Stimulant" Quotes from Famous Books



... time, not too long, however, in the condensed atmosphere, exhibit a most striking exacerbation of mental and physical vigor. They go up and down ladders, lift heavy weights, are more or less exhilarated, and, in short, behave as though under the influence of a stimulant. ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 822 - Volume XXXII, Number 822. Issue Date October 3, 1891 • Various

... very unhealthy stimulant. When I was young and reckless, I was also guilty of using, or ...
— Savva and The Life of Man • Leonid Andreyev

... indicates indolence capable of energies." It was that walk which Carlyle afterwards described, unable to keep to either side of the garden- path. "The moral obligation is to me so very strong a stimulant," Coleridge writes to Crabb Robinson, "that in nine cases out of ten it acts as a narcotic. The blow that should rouse, stuns me." He plays another variation on the ingenious theme in a letter to ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons

... causes there, at any rate, and the fit regimens and methods:—as an old man of sense will usually do. The complaint is, that he was not always faithful to regimen; that, in his old days at least, he loved strong soups, hot spicy meats;—finding, I suppose, a kind of stimulant in them, as others do in wine; a sudden renewal of strength, which might be very tempting to him. There has been a great deal of unwise babble on this subject, which I find no reason to believe, except as just said: In the fall of this year, as usual, perhaps rather ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... atmosphere of his father's sterling industry was the best of Archie's education. Assuredly it did not attract him; assuredly it rather rebutted and depressed. Yet it was still present, unobserved like the ticking of a clock, an arid ideal, a tasteless stimulant ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... ancient; it did not initiate new commerce, but developed a widespread trade already established. It is, as Frobenius says, "easily proved from chronicles written in Arabic that Islam was only effective in fact as a fertilizer and stimulant. The essential point is the resuscitative and invigorative concentration of Negro power in the service of a new era and a Moslem propaganda, as well as the reaction ...
— The Negro • W.E.B. Du Bois

... author, other celebrities of the pen and pencil who will gladly come to greet him; and once drawn to a successful and brilliant assembly, they will be easily induced to return. Therefore, any lady who would make her home attractive to the best society must offer some higher stimulant than the glitter of fashion. For good society we need men and women who can talk. We need relaxation, and it is best sought in intercourse of abiding value with those whose lives differ from those ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke

... an hour later, the spirits in the jug were lowering and those in the men rising with unequal rapidity. Under the influence of the fiery stimulant, Kent's sanguine temperament boiled and bubbled over. Imagination painted the present and future in hues of dazzling radiance. Everything was as delightful as it could be now, and would become more charming as time rolled on. But with Abe Bolton drinking tended ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy

... Ballads",—all have a "flavour", not beloved by those who require a taste, and utterly unpleasant to dram-drinkers, whose diseased palates can only feel pepper and brandy. I know not whether Wordsworth will forgive the stimulant tale of "Thalaba",—'tis a turtle soup, highly seasoned, but with a flavour of its own predominant. His are sparagrass (it ought to be spelt so) and artichokes, good with ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull

... The morning's sail had given us a first-rate appetite, and in spite of the somewhat unsettled state of our affairs we were all three in the best of spirits. Indeed, I think the unknown dangers that surrounded us acted as a sort of stimulant to our sense of pleasure. When you are sitting over a powder mine it is best to enjoy every pleasant moment as keenly as possible. You never know ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges

... bite to eat and a little stimulant, we resumed the climb. After several hours of the most exhausting work I have ever performed we pulled our weary limbs upon the narrow ridge, but a few square yards in area, which constitutes the apex of the Grand Teton. A little below, on the opposite side of a steep-walled gap which divides ...
— The Moon Metal • Garrett P. Serviss

... distinct value for three classes of persons. To the young student it gives a clear insight into literary form, and cultivates his taste for literary excellence. To the author it is at once a stimulant and wholesome restraint; it rewards him for what is good and chastises him for what is bad. To the public it is useful in pointing out what books are worth reading and in showing the principles by which ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter

... without the assistance of poets, we may go on to consider the sources of the musical inspiration which provides appropriate melodies and harmonies for these texts. Experience shows conclusively that the most powerful stimulant of the composer's brain is the possession of a really poetic and dramatic text. To take only one instance—it surely cannot be a mere coincidence that the best works of four great composers—Spohr, Berlioz, Gounod, and Schumann, are based on the story of "Faust." And Schumann, ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck

... him easily along, until they reached a stream; there they paused and washed the heated brow, and allowed the parched lips to imbibe, but only slightly, the pure fresh beverage, sweeter far than the stimulant the good monk had poured down his throat on the field. Then they arranged his dress—bound up his wounds, for the Benedictine was an accomplished surgeon for the times; after which, having satisfied himself that his patient was able to bear the transit, he departed, with a cheerful benediction, ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake

... Moreover, let me remind your worship's classicality that no one of mortals is sapient at all times. Item, that if friend Flaccus be not a calumniator, even the rigid virtue of the antiquer Cato delighted in so stimulant a vanity as wine hot. So give the colt his head, and let it go: remembering always that this same colt, as straying without a responsible rider, is indeed liable to be impounded by any who can catch him; but still, if he be found to have done great damage to his ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... had at last ebbed away he lighted a cigarette and walked thoughtfully back to the castle. There was danger in the air, and this was one of those men upon whom danger acts as a pleasant stimulant. ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman

... what we hear from so many cigar-smokers, namely, that their cigar is their dependence for digestion! That, after having impaired the organ, or weakened its tone, or dried up the salival menstruum, they should need a stimulant, even in the very form of the bane which injures them, is only of a piece with all that has been said of drinking, and especially of dram-drinking, with which latter debauch, the debauch of cigar-smoking has ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, Number 490, Saturday, May 21, 1831 • Various

... white hands, he noted the waving of light hair about her temples, he observed the details of her gown of soft white silk which fell about her in voluminous folds. Now and then the man gave her of the stimulant which the doctor had provided; sometimes he bathed her face with water. Once he paced the floor for a moment till a motion of ...
— The Shape of Fear • Elia W. Peattie

... is tonic, stimulant, febrifuge and costive drinking; mixed with water it is aperitive, refreshing, and also a powerful preservative of fivers and bloody-flux; those latters are very usual in warmth countries, and ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 197, August 6, 1853 • Various

... inexhaustible. He enjoyed everything; he made the best of everything; he saw food for laughter in everything. He was always amused, and therefore was always amusing. Above all, there was a spontaneity in his mirth which acted upon others as a perpetual stimulant. He was in short, what the French call a bon garcon, and the English a capital fellow; easy without assurance, comic without vulgarity, and, as Sydney Smith wittily hath it—"a great number of other things without a ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards

... away with her into personal matters like these, in the early part of the book; but from the first she was apt to be beguiled occasionally by the pleasure of perceiving a powerful stimulant under the influence of which everything is lost sight of but the point perceived. She had never to fight a daily and exhausting battle for her private opinions as talkative people have, simply because she rarely ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... upon this thought, as upon some fiery stimulant, to keep up her part in the scene toward which Rosedale was too frankly tending. As she walked beside him, shrinking in every nerve from the way in which his look and tone made free of her, yet telling herself that this momentary endurance of his mood was the price she must pay for her ultimate ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton

... limitations of the modern monogamous system in its true polyphonic perspective, several huge editions having been exhausted before publication. Professor McTalisker writes in the Theological Supplement of John Bull: "For a person in a state of partial exhaustion I can imagine no more efficacious stimulant than is to be found in those beautiful pages. Not being acquainted with any of the earlier works of the author, I can honestly declare that in my opinion it is the best thing that I have read from her pen, ...
— Punch, Volume 156, January 22, 1919. • Various

... is Saint-Nectaire-le-Haut, also with a large bathing establishment, supplied with similar mineral waters. Hotels: Mont Cornadore; France. The waters are alkaline, ferruginous, and stimulant, temperature between 75 F. and 110 F., and are recommended for renal and hepatic diseases, amenorrhoea, leucorrhoea, and gout. The specialit may be said to be baths and douches of carbonic acid gas. In Mont ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black

... such that the merchant or tradesman who does not deal with promptness can hardly expect to hold his custom. Young men starting out in the world should form the resolution of doing everything on time. Better to be ahead in the performance of duties than behind. This promptness then acts as a stimulant in itself, and is oftentimes the means of winning success ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs

... night. You cannot imagine how that sort of thing, to which I was once so used, now excites and irritates my nerves. The music, the lights, the noise, the applause, the acting, the grand play itself, "Macbeth,"—it was all violent doses of stimulant; and I begin to think my mental constitution is like gunpowder, only unignitable when in the water: I suppose that accounts for my affection for ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

... has an aromatic taste, slightly bitter and acrid, and a very marked perfume of anise which with its star-like form gives the plant one of its names. It is a very useful stimulant, tonic, stomachic and carminative. ...
— The Medicinal Plants of the Philippines • T. H. Pardo de Tavera

... in the ear of a man who needed no stimulant in the path of persecution, he proceeded to express his regrets that the judges and other officers were not taking in hand the chastisement of heresy with ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... and then continued, "Gentlemen, I recently saw this in my own case. For days it was coming, so at night I shut myself in my laboratory, and from the very essence of the purest of my self-compounded drugs I distilled a stimulant into which I put a touch of heart remedy, a brace for weakening nerves, a vitalization of sluggish blood. As I worked, I thought in that thought which embodied the essence of prayer, and when my day and my hour came, and a man who has been the president of your honourable body, and is known ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter

... keeper was found bathed in profuse perspiration, and almost powerless from excessive fatigue. Eau de luce, an aromatic preparation of ammonia, was now administered at frequent and regular intervals as a diffusible stimulant, and moderate though constant exercise enforced until near dawn, when the sufferer was ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 421, January 26, 1884 • Various

... instant Truscott had halted the command and was at the side of his old friend, whom the men had lowered, weak and faint, to the ground. The surgeon came, administered stimulant, examined and rebound his wound; a bullet had torn through the right thigh, and he had bled fearfully, but all he seemed to think of was the errand on which he came. In few words he told of Wayne's position, pointed out the shortest way, and bade them be off at once. Three men were left with ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King

... keeping near a base of supplies. So they purchased a large quantity of tinned goods; beef, condensed milk, and soup. Sugar, coffee, chocolate, flour, and salt made up the burden of the remainder. They also took a supply of coca leaves, which is a native stimulant enabling one to withstand the ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... to see where they are going, these poor creatures dash themselves to pieces against the rocks or are precipitated over the cliffs, and thus many valuable lives are lost annually. As, during the whole pepper-harvest, they feed exclusively on this stimulant, they become exceedingly irritable. The smallest injury is resented with ungovernable rage. A young man suffering from the pepper-fever, as it is called, cudgeled another most severely for appropriating a superannuated relative of trifling value, and was only pacified by having ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various

... independently of any private sorrows that she might have in her own heart. She did not look well, either; she was gradually falling into low health, rather than bad health. Her heart beat more feebly and slower; the vivifying stimulant of hope—even unacknowledged hope—was gone out of her life. It seemed as if there was not, and never could be in this world, any help for the dumb discordancy between her father and his wife. Day after day, month after month, year after year, ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... wrote a letter protesting against the weakness of the official stimulant inadvertently addressed his letter ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 8, 1917 • Various

... sent such a convulsion of mirth through him that he choked badly while drinking wine. He had insisted on ordering the wine, and in making Mav take her share of it, although she vowed that the unaccustomed stimulant would ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell

... reaches the heart. So it is necessary to suck as much of it out as possible and to prevent the remainder from reaching the heart except a little at a time. That's why the bandages were put on the arm so tight. The old notion of taking a stimulant was all wrong. The thing to do is to keep the heart beating as slowly as possible until the venom reaches it. Then if it begins to slow ...
— The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol - The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss

... superstition are to be found in the old poets, although it is held by some that the effects claimed for decoctions of the mandrake really refer to those of the nightshade. This confusion has certainly arisen at times, but the most general idea concerning the mandrake was that it was a stimulant rather than a narcotic. It is true that Shakespeare regarded mandragora as an opiate, for he makes Cleopatra ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor

... reason and that what he imagined himself to see was a phase of madness. So he left the old man's side and sturdily tramped away into the huge dark of the room, resolutely explaining to himself that this was all very natural; the old man had been ill, improperly nourished, and the powerful stimulant of the wine had partly restored him. But even while he went over it St. George knew in his heart that what had happened was nothing that could be so explained, nothing that could be explained at all by anything within ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale

... require that stimulant so often to keep up my dying frame, if I had not been so hard a drinker in late years. However, it is absolutely necessary to me now, if I am to go on. Come close; I cannot raise my voice any longer," whispered ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth

... conceal it," said Fremin. "The pseudonym is only designed as a stimulant to curiosity; but ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... in those crimes which are committed whilst the culprit is either in a state of intoxication or else just recovering from such a state. To detect and trace its indirect influence a much closer study is required. The inconsequent, lazy and thriftless life of the criminal demands some sort of stimulant, and this is found readily at hand in alcohol. Alcohol is not the cause of the crimes of these people but it is closely associated with such cause. The man who stabs another in a saloon is not then guilty of his first crime. Under the influence of intoxication ...
— A Plea for the Criminal • James Leslie Allan Kayll

... northern Yemen has become a major importer. Land once used for export crops-cotton, fruit, and vegetables - has been turned over to growing a shrub called qat, whose leaves are chewed for their stimulant effect by Yemenis and which has no significant export market. Economic growth in former South Yemen has been constrained by a lack of incentives, partly stemming from centralized control over production decisions, investment allocation, and import choices. Yemen's GDP has been supplemented by ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... offended nor surprised. After inviting me to go to his house, and judge for myself, he referred me to a similar case, publicly cited in the 'Cornhill Magazine,' for the month of April, 1879, in an article entitled 'Bodily Illness as a Mental Stimulant.' The article is published anonymously; but the character of the periodical in which it appears is a sufficient guarantee of the trustworthiness of the statement. I was so far influenced by the testimony thus cited, that I drove to Sandsworth ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins

... Now that Poland has been made free as a result of the Great War, it may be that the Pole's inherited indifference will give way to national aspirations and that, in the resurrection of his historic hope of freedom, he will find an animating stimulant. ...
— Our Foreigners - A Chronicle of Americans in the Making • Samuel P. Orth

... chansons which her husband liked, slept, and drank orange pekoe. In the consumption of this last article Mrs. Tempest was as bad as a dram-drinker. She declared her inability to support life without that gentle stimulant, and required to be wound up at various hours of her languid day with a ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon

... 17 I descended to the ground floor, seeking the smoking-room and a little stimulant to assist me in deciding the best course of ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths

... know—not that I pretend to advise. Only when you look so much too pale sometimes, it comes into one's thoughts that you ought not to live on cresses and cold water. Strong coffee, which is the nearest to a stimulant that I dare to take, as far as ordinary diet goes, will almost always deliver me from the worst of headaches, but there is no likeness, no comparison. And your 'quite well' means that dreadful 'turning' still ... still! Now do not think any more of the Domizias, nor 'try to remember,' ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett

... secretions of the kidneys—assisting them in the work of carrying off solid constituents, especially urea—it also increases the secretions of the skin, saliva, bile, etc. Under proper conditions the internal use of water acts as a stimulant to the nerves that control the blood-vessels, a stimulant similar to that ...
— Intestinal Ills • Alcinous Burton Jamison

... it. You find yourself short of money. You can borrow money. And you can do it, oh, so easily. People will crowd money on you. It is the most subtle temptation the young business man has. But if you do borrow money you are simply giving a stimulant to whatever may be wrong. You feed the disease. Is a man more wise with borrowed money than he is with his own? Not as a usual thing. To borrow under such conditions is ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford

... told us the truth; and we knew that he was pretending to the others that he did not know. We made some cheerful nothings in our talk, and would have gone but he held us. The Eager Soul looked at her watch, gave him some medicine, which we took to be a heart stimulant; for he revived under it, ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White

... of investigators overshooting the mark, but never quite to the extent that he has done. He has really, this time at any rate, without any touch of exaggeration in the phrase, found something to revolutionise human life. And that when he was simply seeking an all-round nervous stimulant to bring languid people up to the stresses of these pushful days. I have tasted the stuff now several times, and I cannot do better than describe the effect the thing had on me. That there are astonishing experiences ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells

... prostration. With the necessity for exertion the power had died. Fleda could only lie upon the cushions, and sleep helplessly, while Mrs. Pritchard sat by, anxiously watching her; curiosity really swallowed up in kind feeling. Monday was little better, but towards the after part of the day the stimulant of anxiety began to work again, and Fleda sat up to watch for a word from her uncle, But none came, and Tuesday morning distressed Mrs. Pritchard with its want of amendment. It was not to be hoped for, Fleda knew, ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner

... subject, not into it. Only the few who can write into their subject add something to literature. One of these few is M. Sainte-Beuve. In his mind there is vitality to animate his large acquirement, to make his many chapters buoyant and stimulant. All through his writings is the sparkle ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert

... across the top of the axe-handle which he held between his knees as a mental stimulant, "father, I've been thinking of something a good ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)

... she must have begun drug-taking because of the mental and nervous exhaustion resulting from late hours and over-much gaiety. The demands of her profession proved too great for her impaired nervous energy, and she sought some stimulant which would enable her to appear bright on the stage when actually she should have been recuperating, in sleep, that loss of vital force which can be ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer

... persons, make the price of things artificially high here, or artificially low there, and interfere with the natural flow of trade and commerce, should be done away with. But in the policy of our Liberal friends free-trade [231] means more than this, and is specially valued as a stimulant to the production of wealth, as they call it, and to the increase of the trade, business, and population of the country. We have already seen how these things,—trade, business, and population,—are mechanically pursued by us as ends precious in themselves, and are worshipped as what we call ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold

... produced on his own mind. As soon as hope sprang up in the breasts of all around him, his spirit also caught the contagion. As a rule, he would now make an effort to articulate. I would then administer a good dose of sal volatile, brandy, eau-de-luce, or other strong stimulant, cut into the supposed bite, and apply strong nitric acid to the wound. This generally made him wince, and I would hail it as a token of certain recovery. By this time some confidence would return, and the supposed dying ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis

... not compulsory, and no man need take it unless he wishes. This is not the time or place to discuss the temperance question, but our commanders and the army surgeons believe that rum as a medicine, as a stimulant, is necessary to the health of the soldier, ...
— Private Peat • Harold R. Peat

... acted as a stimulant to an already sufficiently fecund pen. They awakened in her that sense of responsibility for her nieces' future, which nothing but an exceptionally heartrending letter of appeal for financial assistance for them could put comfortably to ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson

... crumbs may be added, if desired. The whole egg may be used. Hot water, broth or coffee, may be substituted for the milk; nutmeg may be substituted for the stimulant. ...
— The Suffrage Cook Book • L. O. Kleber

... Frank Merriwell's brain? Surely he was besieged by uncanny fancies, but never in all his life was he more on the alert. The very air of mystery that surrounded him was a stimulant. He had solved many mysteries, and now he was determined to solve ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish

... that was and is and ever will be, was brought vividly to their minds by this unnecessary adstimulation; and now the bar-keeper, whose lager-beer was wellnigh exhausted, from its connection with ham-sandwiches, had enough to do to furnish them with whiskey, of which stimulant there was but too large a supply on hand. The consequence of this was soon apparent in the ugly hilarity with which the rowdies entered upon the enjoyment of the afternoon. First, in spite of the remonstrances of the Teuton whose proper ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various

... air. Perfume that was a tonic, a subtle elixir; that sparkled upon the senses, sank suavely and healingly through me, so that I seemed to draw refreshment with each breath. Reluctantly, I aroused more and more in response to this unusual stimulant; which somehow gave delicious rest yet drew me from ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram

... years past, alcoholic beverages were considered to be a necessity for medicinal purposes in hospitals and in homes, but this use of them has been very greatly decreased. In fact, it is believed by most authorities that often more harm than good is done by using alcoholic beverages as a medical stimulant or as a carrier for some drug. As these drinks are harmful in this respect, so are they detrimental to health when they are taken merely as beverages. It is definitely known that alcohol acts as a food when it enters the body, for it is burned just as a carbohydrate would be and ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 5 • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences

... and the next minute we were helping to bear the old Spaniard to a couch, when, his wounds being roughly bound up, and a stimulant given, he told us in tolerable English that about three miles from the hacienda, while on his way to the nearest town, he had been set upon suddenly, and in spite of the resistance offered by himself and servant, they had been roughly treated, and ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn

... Dutch, who, for two hundred years supplied the culture of Europe to Japan, introduced Western science, furnished almost the only intellectual stimulant, and were the sole teachers of medicine and science.[15] They trained up hundreds of Japanese to be physicians who practised rational medicine and surgery. They filled with needed courage the hearts of men, who, secretly practising dissection of the bodies of criminals, demonstrated the ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis

... read Sinnett's Esoteric Buddhism will probably agree on one point, namely: that, whether the statements of the book be true or false, the book, as a whole, is a great stimulant of thought. The European world has looked upon Indian philosophy as mere dreams, idle speculations, built only on a foundation of metaphysical subtleties. Here comes a book which, going down to the root of the whole matter, claims that, instead of resting on ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. I, No. 3, March, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various

... when she had swallowed the stimulant, "I lied to you. I once lied to you very sore, ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child

... sweetened and embellished.' Nay, does not Poetry, acting on the imaginations of men, excite them to daring purposes; sometimes, as in the case of Tyrtaeus, to fight better; in which wise may it not rank as a useful stimulant to man, along with Opium and Scotch Whisky, the manufacture of which is allowed by law? In Heaven's name, then, let Poetry ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

... but for the fact that something else, more insidious and deadly still, is rapidly taking its place. For a time, it was thought that alcohol might recover its sway, and it is still quite probable that human cravings for stimulant of some kind will find a partial relief in that direction. The present enemy, however, and one that demands serious and immediate attention, is morphia, which is being largely imported into China in the shape of a variety of preparations ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles

... health and happiness; on the other view, the fire is a fierce destructive power which blasts and consumes all the noxious elements, whether spiritual or material, that menace the life of men, of animals, and of plants. According to the one theory the fire is a stimulant, according to the other it is a disinfectant; on the one view its virtue is positive, on the other ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... circumstances, had been for some hours without liquor and was comparatively sober. He stood for a moment staring amazedly at the group around his fireside. Perhaps because he had been so long without his usual stimulant his mind was weakened and things appeared as a strange vision to him. At any rate, he stood and stared, and as he looked from one to another of the men, at the beautiful stranger, and across to the strangely unfamiliar face of his wife in her new bonnet, his eyes took on a frightened look. He ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill

... is the common hemp plant, which provides hallucinogens with some sedative properties, and includes marijuana (pot, Acapulco gold, grass, reefer), tetrahydrocannabinol (THC, Marinol), hashish (hash), and hashish oil (hash oil). Coca (mostly Erythroxylum coca) is a bush with leaves that contain the stimulant used to make cocaine. Coca is not to be confused with cocoa, which comes from cacao seeds and is used in making chocolate, cocoa, and cocoa butter. Cocaine is a stimulant derived from the leaves of the coca bush. Depressants (sedatives) are drugs that reduce tension and anxiety ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... not more unhappy, rather than less. He had few friends, and those few, like Professor Norton, were intellectual companions as well, always ready and eager to debate with him the problems of Art and Life which were forever vexing him. Their companionship must often have been a stimulant—when he needed, perhaps, a narcotic. Their intercourse drove him continually in upon himself, where there was only seething unrest, when he needed so often to be taken completely out of himself, where there was peace. And, in his hours of need, he turned to the Alps, and the penguins. ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton

... were good form for a woman to retire for a stimulant," said Mrs. Wingfield, "then would I make my exit, for I feel quite overcome at ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny

... David Brown and the getting possession of his chart was the one stimulant that helped Ann to endure this long day of inactivity. It was like a small thimbleful of wine to one who longed for a generous draught; there was nothing else to do but to wait, alert for all chances that might help her. Evening closed in; the sisters were left alone. Christa returned ...
— The Zeit-Geist • Lily Dougall

... hoped that this little book may serve as a simple guide and as a stimulant toward an extended study of the larger attributes of printing which are not concerned with ...
— Applied Design for Printers - Typographic Technical Series for Apprentices #43 • Harry Lawrence Gage

... to lie down again. The feeling of alarm that instantly thrilled through her bosom, lest she should no longer be able to minister to the wants of her mother, and especially of her brother at this important crisis in his life, acted as a stimulant to exhausted nature, and endowed her with a degree of artificial strength that enabled her to make another and more successful effort to ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur

... a violent, involuntary contraction of the respiratory muscles, as in hiccough. When an acrid stimulant, as snuff, is applied to the mucous membrane of the nose, an irritation is produced which is accompanied by a violent expulsion of air from the lungs. This is owing to the connection between the ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter

... of the plant vulgarly known as toadstool. There is a peculiar fungus of this class in Siberia, known to the natives as "muk-a-moor," and as it possesses active intoxicating properties, it is used as a stimulant by nearly all the Siberian tribes. [Footnote: Agaricus muscarius or fly-agaric.] Taken in large quantities it is a violent narcotic poison; but in small doses it produces all the effects of alcoholic liquor. Its habitual use, however, completely shatters the nervous system, and its sale by Russian ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan

... cheerful tone of mind. He told me that the sight of the fine children daily to be met in the Luxembourg Gardens, was as exhilarating to his spirits as the gay flowers in the parterre and that he had frequently prescribed a walk here to those whose minds stood in need of such a stimulant. ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner

... took place upon him for the better, in respect of his physical economy, was, while accompanied by a partial release from the domination of his old fancies, generally attended by a kind of new-born desire for another and a new supply of his stimulant visions. This discovery I made one day, when, as I felicitated myself on having effected a confirmation of his nerves, by the application of a course of tonics, I told him that I myself was on the eve of ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various

... artistic, musical and dramatic centre. His fetes were worthy of a millionaire, and, alike in those private theatricals, tableaux vivants or concerts, he ever took a leading part. An accomplished violinist, Dore found in music a never-failing stimulant and refreshment. Rossini was one of his circle, among others were the two Gautiers, the two Dumas, Carolus Duran, Liszt, Gounod, Patti, Alboni and Nilsson, Mme. Dore, still handsome and alert in her old age, proudly doing the honours of what was now called the Hotel Dore. By his ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... to Madame Coudert's door, and there, lying upon an improvised stretcher, and attended by his wife and children, he rested from his journey, while Madame Coudert ran to prepare a cup of coffee for a stimulant. From Madame Coudert's door they watched the further destruction of the beautiful Cathedral which Mother Meraut had so often called the "safest place in Rheims." As it burned, a wonderful thing happened. High above ...
— The French Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins

... Bavarian boys and girls who have been at school from seven and worked in the fields from three o'clock till dark, drinking their beer in the beer garden with a relish that showed they needed some stimulant. The beer is not Bass's ale, but it contains from two to five per cent. of alcohol. Unhealthy-looking little men are these German boys of from twelve to fifteen during the war. The overwork, and the lowering ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin

... but to the general feeling of the people. It was a law springing from within, and therefore effectual; not imposed from without, and useless. That there were breaches and evasions of the law is only natural. The craving for some stimulant amongst all people is very great—so great as to have forced itself to be acknowledged and regulated by most states, and made a great source of revenue. Amongst the Burmans the craving is, I should say, as strong as amongst other people; and no mere legal prohibition would have had ...
— The Soul of a People • H. Fielding

... any candy for years, for men who drink regularly rarely take sweets. One day I looked in a confectioner's window and was irresistibly attracted by a box of caramels. I went in and bought it, and ate half a dozen. They seemed to fill a long-felt want. The sugar in them supplied the stimulant that was lacking, I suppose. Anyhow, they tasted right good and were satisfactory; and I kept a box of caramels on my desk for several weeks and ate a few each day. Also I began to yell for ice cream and pie and other sweets ...
— Cutting It out - How to get on the waterwagon and stay there • Samuel G. Blythe

... Caterina, revived by the stimulant, was now recovering the full consciousness of the scene in the Rookery. Anthony was lying there dead; she had left him to tell Sir Christopher; she must go and see what they were doing with him; perhaps he was not really dead—only in a trance; people did fall into trances sometimes. ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot

... discouragement or depression, there occurred another encounter with the enemy on the following morning, which neutralized the disgrace of the previous day and revived the spirits of our army to an astonishing degree. So much importance was attached to it at the time as being a greatly needed stimulant for the American soldier that it becomes of interest to follow its particulars. It has passed into our history ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston

... in prose, yet of a philosophy which was half poetic figure, half generalised fact, in style crabbed and obscure, but stimulant, invasive, not to be forgotten—he too might be thought, as a writer of prose, one of the "fathers" of Plato. His influence, however, on Plato, though himself a Heraclitean in early life, was by way of antagonism or reaction; Plato's stand against ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater

... of exaggeration we find again in the common-sense tone of his descriptions. He makes no literary fuss about being in the open air: perhaps because he did not discover the value of the atmosphere as a stimulant for literature, but always naturally knew it as a proper ingredient in life. He is no George Borrow. There is a reality in his travels that may seem to some often far from poetical: dark shadows and patches about food and ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell

... opponent strung his nerves in an instant; the notion of an impending struggle was almost an inspiration, and his innate desire of getting the better of a competitor, even though it was his closest friend, aroused his wits and sharpened his faculties like a stimulant. He had no hesitancy in sacrificing his chum. It was business now; friendship ceased to be a factor in the affair. Ah, Van was going to be foxy; he'd show him that he could ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris

... mandrake enjoyed in Italy so great a reputation as an erotic stimulant, that the celebrated Macchiavelli wrote a much admired comedy upon it, called "La Mandragora." The subject of this piece, according to Voltaire, who asserts "qu'il vaut, peut être mieux que toutes les pièces d'Aristophane, est un jeune homme adroit qui ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport

... who are always dreaming up the rules never carry your thinking far enough. You are against drugs. Which drugs? What about the tannic acid in that tea you're drinking? Or the caffeine in it? It's loaded with caffeine—a drug that is both a strong stimulant and a diuretic. That's why you won't find tea in spacesuit canteens. That's a case of a drug forbidden for a good reason. Can you justify your cigarette ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey

... the courtier, whose no less deadly arms were concealed by velvet and lace. For the liquid in the tumbler and in the syringe that the physician carefully filled was now a solution of glonoin, the most powerful heart stimulant known to medical science. Two ounces had riven the solid door of the iron safe; with one fiftieth part of a minim he was now about to still forever the intricate mechanism of a ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry

... they may be gathered on the thirteenth or fourteenth day. These last have the cellular tissue very much extended, and they contain more water, more albumen and less of that acrid, volatile principle, which is but little soluble in water, and in which the stimulant property of tobacco seems ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt

... the whole for the peaceful settlement of the controversy that the King should have found this new and unexpected stimulant to his anger; for when his wrath had completely exploded over it, and when Brougham had been able to explain, again and again, that no act of high-treason had been contemplated or committed, the royal fury had spent itself; ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy

... for leader—an Italian boy of sixteen, fair as a god of Greece. He went before with the most innocent grace in the world, and looked at us over his shoulder. He called his sister to come also, and as a stimulant he held up his penny. But she hung back, smit with sudden maidenly modesty at the sight of two such proper young men; and so her brother danced on ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett

... with a smile of disgust. At the same time the objects which excite his desire are never attained with sang-froid; all that the debauches loves, he seizes; his life is a fever; his organs, in order to search the depths of joy, are forced to avail themselves of the stimulant of fermented liquors and sleepless nights; in the days of ennui and of idleness he feels more keenly than other men the disparity between his impotence and his temptations, and, in order to resist the latter, pride must come to his aid and make him believe that he disdains them. It ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... entered the house, our ears were saluted by a sort of scuffling noise, with an accompaniment of broken English. Miss Turligood, highly charged with the Detached Vitalized Electricity, or some stimulant of equal potency, ran to meet us in the entry, to enjoin silence and a passive state of mind before entering the parlor. The manifestations during service had been most wonderful. Twynintuft had lifted the table to the ceiling, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various

... the Palace of Horticulture, between the Education and Liberal Arts Palaces, and adjoins the Court of the Four Seasons. The charming sunken garden and simple pool reflect the colored colonnade, arches and towers with a sense of rest that is a relief and stimulant after walking miles of exhibit halls. Although really nearly two acres in area, the court seems small and intimate. The proportions are good, and ...
— An Art-Lovers guide to the Exposition • Shelden Cheney

... to protest against the detective's hypothesis. The idea of any drug addict ever forgetting to take his stimulant was too preposterous. But Kennedy checked me. All were now keenly listening to the argument. Better, perhaps, to let some one think that nothing was suspected than to disclose the cards in Craig's hand. ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve

... springtide of love, which the poet cries for in his distress, the son of Monnica knew well was come for him. How he must have listened to the musical and melancholy counsellor who told his pain to the leaves of the book! What stimulant and what food for his boyish longings and dreams! And what a divine chorus of beauties the great love-heroines of ancient epic and elegy, Helen, Medea, Ariadne, Phaedra, formed and re-formed continually in his dazzled memory! When we of to-day read such verses at Augustin's ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand

... into the conflict. The Wordsworthians were a sect, who, if they had the enthusiasm, had also not a little of the exclusiveness and partiality to which sects are liable. The verses of the master had for them the virtue of religious canticles stimulant of zeal and not amenable to the ordinary tests of cold-blooded criticism. Like the hymns of the Huguenots and Covenanters, they were songs of battle no less than of worship, and the combined ardors of conviction and conflict lent them a fire that ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell

... and raised it to his lips with a trembling hand. I stood watching him, debating within myself whether I should disobey him by calling for help or not; but presently, to my great relief, I saw the stimulant take effect, and life come slowly surging back in colour to his cheeks, in strength to his whole prostrate frame. He straightened himself a little, and turned upon me a ...
— Cecilia de Noel • Lanoe Falconer

... the torn childish bosom with anxious ears. They got a few drops of brandy between the clenched little teeth. The sealed lips quivered; the heart fluttered feebly, like a dying bird. They gave her more stimulant, and waited, while the Hottentot driver dozed, and the sleek, well-fed oxen chewed the cud patiently, standing in ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... out of the Nestor yard, many of the crowd that had gathered during the rescue following. The doctor administered some more stimulant in the shape of aromatic spirits of ammonia to the man, who, after his momentary revival, had again lapsed into a state ...
— Tom Swift among the Fire Fighters - or, Battling with Flames from the Air • Victor Appleton

... prepares term-reports. Besides, young men who have passed four years at one college need "a change of air:" they will develop more rapidly if brought into contact with new ideas and new instructors. Every institution has an atmosphere of its own, which ceases after a time to act upon the student as a stimulant. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various

... spirit to reply. She could only sit in abject lassitude, content to feel the glow of the stimulant creeping through her veins. For a time, her thoughts were stilled by the bodily torpor. She welcomed the respite, glad to rest from the horror of her plight. She heard the raucous voice of the outlaw ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily

... so it was not deemed a thing to see the doctor about; instead Ona would try patent medicines, one after another, as her friends told her about them. As these all contained alcohol, or some other stimulant, she found that they all did her good while she took them; and so she was always chasing the phantom of good health, and losing it because she was ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair

... all the cases. They help the heart, act as a food, and tend to quiet the general nervousness by favoring sleep. Good brandy given in boiled cool water is the best stimulant. ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume IV. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • Grant Hague

... considerations, looking to the proper exploitation of the soil, are added to these. To-day, many square miles are planted with potatoes, which are to be applied mainly to the distilling of brandy, an article consumed almost exclusively by the poor classes of the population. Liquor is the only stimulant and "care-dispeller" that they are able to procure. The population of Socialist society needs none of that, hence the raising of potatoes and corn for that purpose, together with the labor therein expended, are set free for the production ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel

... and which is used by them for the same purposes as cubebs; but its chief value is as a styptic, an effect probably produced by its rough under surface, acting mechanically like lint. It has been employed internally to check hemorrhages, but with doubtful effect. Its aromatic bitter stimulant properties are like those of cubebs, and depend on a volatile oil, a dark-green resin, and a peculiar ...
— Catalogue of Economic Plants in the Collection of the U. S. Department of Agriculture • William Saunders



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