erethism
Americannoun
noun
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physiol an abnormally high degree of irritability or sensitivity in any part of the body
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psychiatry
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a personality disorder resulting from mercury poisoning
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an abnormal tendency to become aroused quickly, esp sexually, as the result of a verbal or psychic stimulus
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Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of erethism
1790–1800; < French éréthisme < Greek erethismós irritation, equivalent to ereth ( ízein ) to irritate + -ismos -ism
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.
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 Havelock Ellis
They lose control over their vasomotor system to some extent as a result of this systemic erethism.
From Psychotherapy by James J. (James Joseph) Walsh
But ought this excess of nervous erethism to be referred necessarily to the peculiar nature of the Urning?
From A Problem in Modern Ethics being an inquiry into the phenomenon of sexual inversion, addressed especially to Medical Psychologists and Jurists by John Addington Symonds
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 James J. (James Joseph) Walsh
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 Franklin Bache
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