innervate
Americanverb (used with object)
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to communicate nervous energy to; stimulate through nerves.
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to furnish with nerves; grow nerves into.
verb
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to supply nerves to (a bodily organ or part)
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to stimulate (a bodily organ or part) with nerve impulses
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of innervate
Explanation
Unless you’re into anatomy or zoology, you probably don’t need the word innervate very often. It’s pronounced “inNERVate," accent on the “nerve.” To innervate is “to supply nerves to.” It also means “to stimulate” or “to supply with energy.” The word innervate sounds like what it is — it means to “put the nerves into” something. When nerves go into muscle fiber, they innervate the muscle fiber. Innervate is to supply nerves to something, but it can also mean to energize. Think of all the energy you have when you get nervous! Sometimes nervousness can even innervate the hairs on your arms, i.e. stimulate them and make them stand up.
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:
The same was true when another member of the research team, Courtney Wilson, recorded signals from the nerves that innervate the taste cells.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 5, 2023
Your sensory neurons innervate all the muscles in your body, and from how much your muscles are stretched, you have a very visual—without actually looking—image of where your limbs are.
From Scientific American ● Oct. 8, 2021
Some parts of the body might be more sensitive to NaV1.7 blockers than others, because neurons that innervate one organ might have different populations of ion channels than neurons in another.
From Nature ● Sep. 10, 2019
“As it goes down, the branches innervate the muscle, and then it goes down to the thumb over here,” he says.
From National Geographic ● Jul. 29, 2016
Sympathetic nervous system: applied to the nerves and ganglia of the alimentary canal and sonic other viscera which they innervate; = vagus; visceral nervous system.
From Explanation of Terms Used in Entomology by Smith, John. B.
The researchers knew that muscles become less innervated, or infiltrated with nerves, as people and animals age.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 11, 2023
Four olfactory sensors, each innervated by a nerve that transmits information to the brain as an action potential, are shown in the diagram at the right.
From Textbooks ● Jun. 9, 2022
Explain what can be inferred about the relative sizes of the areas of cortex that process signals from skin not densely innervated with sensory receptors versus skin that is densely innervated with sensory receptors.
From Textbooks ● Jun. 9, 2022
Every skeletal muscle fiber in every skeletal muscle is innervated by a motor neuron at the NMJ.
From Textbooks ● Jun. 19, 2013
In self-satisfaction the extensor muscles are innervated, the eye is strong and glorious, the gait rolling and elastic, the nostril dilated, and a peculiar smile plays upon the lips.
From Human Traits and their Social Significance by Edman, Irwin
Using mouse antibodies that glom on to proteasomes, and other methods, the investigators found the proteasomes on the surface of neurons in the spinal cord, dorsal root ganglia, sciatic nerve and peripheral nerves innervating skin.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 12, 2024
Secretion of these hormones is stimulated by acetylcholine release from preganglionic sympathetic fibers innervating the adrenal medulla.
From Textbooks ● Jun. 9, 2022
The sequence of events that result in the contraction of an individual muscle fiber begins with a signal—the neurotransmitter, ACh—from the motor neuron innervating that fiber.
From Textbooks ● Jun. 19, 2013
There were swelling songs, innervating rain storms, and jiggly dances, but no onscreen kissing.
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 2, 2012
The ganglia of the three post-oral segments, which bear the jaws, have fused in one compound ganglion innervating the mouth and jaws.
From The Whence and the Whither of Man A Brief History of His Origin and Development through Conformity to Environment; Being the Morse Lectures of 1895 by Tyler, John Mason
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.
