erethism

American  

[er-uh-thiz-uhm] / ˈɛr əˌθɪz əm /

noun

Physiology.

1. an unusual or excessive degree of irritability or stimulation in an organ or tissue.

---

erethism British  

/ ˈɛrɪˌθɪzəm /

noun

1. physiol an abnormally high degree of irritability or sensitivity in any part of the body

2. psychiatry

   1. a personality disorder resulting from mercury poisoning

   2. an abnormal tendency to become aroused quickly, esp sexually, as the result of a verbal or psychic stimulus

---

Other Word Forms

• erethic adjective
• erethismic adjective
• erethistic adjective
• erethitic adjective
• hypererethism noun

Etymology

Origin of erethism

1790–1800; < French éréthisme < Greek erethismós irritation, equivalent to ereth ( ízein ) to irritate + -ismos -ism

Example Sentences

They are irritable in the nervous sense and excitable, and this erethism increases their nervous instability which responds by craving further excitement.

From Religion And Health by Walsh, James J. (James Joseph)

This is probably in part due to a deliberate attempt to prolong the act in the East, and in part to a greater nervous erethism among Westerns.

From Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 Erotic Symbolism; The Mechanism of Detumescence; The Psychic State in Pregnancy by Ellis, Havelock

He was not really tormented except by a cerebral erethism.

From Là-bas by Wallace, Keene

They lose control over their vasomotor system to some extent as a result of this systemic erethism.

From Psychotherapy by Walsh, James J. (James Joseph)

It is employed without success in local phlegmorrhagies of the lungs; but it almost invariably cures those chronic catarrhs, which depend on a state of erethism of the mucous lining of the bronchiæ.

From North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 by Bache, Franklin