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.
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 Symonds, John Addington
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)
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)
He was not really tormented except by a cerebral erethism.
From Là-bas by Wallace, Keene
The intense excitement of the events had no doubt left my perceptive powers in a state of erethism.
From The War of the Worlds by Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)
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.
