NERVOUS SYSTEM • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Nervous system

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/nˈərvəs sˈɪstəm/ Listen

adjective

Nervous adj.

1.

Possessing nerve; sinewy; strong; vigorous. "Nervous arms."

2.

Possessing or manifesting vigor of mind; characterized by strength in sentiment or style; forcible; spirited; as, a nervous writer.

3.

Of or pertaining to the nerves; seated in the nerves; as, nervous excitement; a nervous fever.

4.

Having the nerves weak, diseased, or easily excited; subject to, or suffering from, undue excitement of the nerves; easily agitated or annoyed. "Poor, weak, nervous creatures."

5.

Sensitive; excitable; timid.

6.

Apprehensive; as, a child nervous about his mother's reaction to his bad report card. "Our aristocratic class does not firmly protest against the unfair treatment of Irish Catholics, because it is nervous about the land."

Nervous fever (Med.), a low form of fever characterized by great disturbance of the nervous system, as evinced by delirium, or stupor, disordered sensibility, etc.

Nervous system (Anat.), the specialized coordinating apparatus which endows animals with sensation and volition. In vertebrates it is often divided into three systems: the central, brain and spinal cord; the peripheral, cranial and spinal nerves; and the sympathetic. See Brain, Nerve, Spinal cord, under Spinal, and Sympathetic system, under Sympathetic.

Nervous temperament, a condition of body characterized by a general predominance of mental manifestations.

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Etymology of 'Nervous system'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Nervous system" Quotes from Famous Books

... is able to break him—that having conquered man after man, perhaps even with fatal results to his riders, he has become absolutely depraved and impossible of submission. She only knew that her heart was beating rapidly, painfully, that her breath came in gasps, that her whole nervous system was involved in some manner of anguish. She saw the Chinese cook run past to witness the game, but all her faculties were focused on the man and horse—both sinister, ...

— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels

... be done away with before "the body can be molded to the expression of high thought." For this purpose the "decomposing," "relaxing" or "devitalizing" motions are given. The old gymnast doubled up the fist and, with great tension, gave a blow which jarred the whole nervous system. The "freeing" motions of Delsarte give harmonious, restful, wave movements to ...

— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke

... gradual coalition of organic life upon this globe. In 1855, in his "Principles of Psychology," he gave a new exposition of the laws of mind, based upon this principle, and held that it is by experience, registered in the slowly perfecting nervous system, that the mental faculties have been gradually evolved through long courses of descent, each generation inheriting all that had been previously gained, and adding its own increment to the sum of progress; that all knowledge, and ...

— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta

... Nervous System.—The erectile tissue surrounding the spinal cord and origin of the spinal nerves in the Cetacea did not extend into the interior of the cranium. The entire encephalic mass weighed 2-1/2 lbs.: cerebrum, 2 lbs.; cerebellum, 1/4; pons and medulla, 1/4 ...

— Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society - Vol. 3 - Zoology • Various

... one knows, or at least as all intelligent people know, the special department in which Gibberne has gained so great and deserved a reputation among physiologists is the action of drugs upon the nervous system. Upon soporifics, sedatives, and anaesthetics he is, I am told, unequalled. He is also a chemist of considerable eminence, and I suppose in the subtle and complex jungle of riddles that centres about ...

— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells

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