arousal
Americannoun
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arousals
plural
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the act or an instance of waking up.
Arousals occur naturally during sleep and increase with age.
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the act of stimulating someone sexually, or the state of being sexually stimulated.
Some yoga practices improve levels of arousal in sexually unsatisfied women.
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the act of stirring up or the state of being stirred up; excitement: Relieving teens from stress in conversations can be a very effective way to prevent the arousal of anger.
Be aware of your level of emotional arousal when making decisions.
Relieving teens from stress in conversations can be a very effective way to prevent the arousal of anger.
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Origin of arousal
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Stimulant medications affect arousal and reward, not attention networks.
From Science Daily ● Dec. 29, 2025
For example, higher arousal increased ACA's tendency to help VISp sharpen its visual representations.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 30, 2025
As a therapist, I know that for children with autism, water offers resistance, pressure and pleasant sensory arousal.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 7, 2025
Emotional responses and physiological arousal, measured through skin conductance, were not significant predictors of feedback-seeking behavior, suggesting that these factors may not play as large of a role in shaping decisions to seek performance feedback.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 21, 2024
He clearly played basketball in that same optimal range of arousal in which Ron Avery performed.
From "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell
In a new Science Advances paper Bartsch proposes an innovative hypothesis that spontaneous arousals are due to random electrical activity in a specific set of neurons in the brain—aptly named the wake-promoting neurons.
From Scientific American ● May 1, 2018
“Because they have low arousals, they are less protected from any hypoxic event—a shortage of oxygen.”
From Scientific American ● May 1, 2018
In a stark departure from Freudian orthodoxy, Solms argues that what Freud said constituted the id — arousals, instincts and drives — are instead conscious states, readily accessible to observation.
From New York Times ● Jun. 24, 2015
Breathing stoppages literally suction up your stomach juices into your throat, causing more swelling and inflammation, causing more obstructions and arousals.
From New York Times ● Jul. 20, 2010
Confusional arousals: People may be agitated, aggressive and unable to waken fully, talk clearly or respond to questions.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 12, 2010
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
