An externalphenomenon that has aninfluence on asystem, bytriggering 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 solestimulus 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”, inNew York Times[1]:
Democrats, meanwhile, point out that Republicans seem to have made a conscious decision, beginning with thestimulus, 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, page44:
Even light nonpainfulstimuli can provoke or exacerbate spontaneous pain; this is not limited to tactile, thermal, or vibratory stimuli, because auditory, visual, olfactory, and visceralstimuli also may be problematic.
1789,Erasmus Darwin,The Loves of the Plants, J. Johnson, page15:
Many plants, like many animals, are furnished with arms for their protection; these are either aculei, prickles[…]; orstimuli, stings, as in the nettles, which are armed with a venomous fluid for the annoyance of naked animals.
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Possibly from aProto-Indo-European*(s)tey-(“sharp object”) that might also be found instilus,stīva. This could be an unextended variant of the same root found in*(s)teyg-(“to pierce, prick, be sharp”),[1] the source ofAncient Greekστίζω(stízō,“I mark”), although De Vaan is skeptical of the connection.
^De Vaan, Michiel (2008), “stilus”, inEtymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 7), Leiden, Boston: Brill,→ISBN,page587
“stimulus”, inCharlton T. Lewis (1891),An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
"stimulus", in Charles du Fresne du Cange’sGlossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
