pulsation

What it means

1. countableuncountableThe regular throbbing of the heart, an artery etc. in a living body; the pulse.First known use 15th c.

   Pulsation had ceased. For three days the body was preserved unburied, during which it had acquired a stony rigidity.

   1844, Edgar Allan Poe, The Premature Burial

2. countableuncountableAny rhythmic beating, throbbing etc.First known use 17th c.

   Lo! as a dove when up she springs ⁠To bear thro’ Heaven a tale of woe, ⁠Some dolorous message knit below The wild pulsation of her wings; Like her I go; I cannot stay; ⁠I leave this mortal ark behind […]

   1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto XII”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC

3. countableuncountablebiologyThe rhythmic increase and decrease of size in naked zoospores and plasmodia.

In a sentence

Pulsation had ceased. For three days the body was preserved unburied, during which it had acquired a stony rigidity.

1844, Edgar Allan Poe, The Premature Burial

Where it comes from

1. Latinpulsātiō“(classical Latin) a beating or striking; (Medieval Latin, medical) rhythmical expansion and contraction (1363 in Chauliac)”
2. Middle Frenchpulsacion“(of bells) a striking (end of 14th c.); (of a diseased part of the body) a throbbing (1377); pulsation (1575)”
3. Middle Englishpulsacioun“pulsing of the blood, throbbing”
4. Englishpulsation

Inherited from Middle English pulsacioun (“pulsing of the blood, throbbing”), borrowed from Middle French pulsacion (“(of bells) a striking (end of 14th c.); (of a diseased part of the body) a throbbing (1377); pulsation (1575)”), and its source, Latin pulsātiō (“(classical Latin) a beating or striking; (Medieval Latin, medical) rhythmical expansion and contraction (1363 in Chauliac)”). By surface analysis, pulsate + -ion.

First known use: 15th c.