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An external phenomenon that has an influence on a system, by triggering or modifying an internal phenomenon; for example, a spur or incentive that drives a person to take action or change behaviour.
From the beginning of the show to the end, vanity is the sole stimulus and reward of action—vanity, that never looks beyond the present.
2012 November 7, Matt Bai, “Winning a Second Term, Obama Will Confront Familiar Headwinds”, in New York Times:
Democrats, meanwhile, point out that Republicans seem to have made a conscious decision, beginning with the stimulus, to oppose anything the president put forward, dooming any chance of renewed cooperation between the parties.
2002, Kim Burchiel, Surgical Management of Pain, Thieme, →ISBN, page 44:
Even light nonpainful stimuli can provoke or exacerbate spontaneous pain; this is not limited to tactile, thermal, or vibratory stimuli, because auditory, visual, olfactory, and visceral stimuli also may be problematic.
1789, Erasmus Darwin, The Loves of the Plants, J. Johnson, page 15:
Many plants, like many animals, are furnished with arms for their protection; these are either aculei, prickles […]; or stimuli, stings, as in the nettles, which are armed with a venomous fluid for the annoyance of naked animals.
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“stimulus”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
stimulus in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
stimulus in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
Carl Meißner, Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book, London: Macmillan and Co.
to be spurred on by ambition: stimulis gloriae concitari
to spur, urge a person on: calcaria alicui adhibere, admovere; stimulos alicui admovere
“stimulus”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers