pulse

Noun (1)

Middle English pous, pouce, pulse, borrowed from Anglo-French & Latin; Anglo-French pous, polz, puls, borrowed from Latin pulsus "action of beating or striking, beat, stroke, beat of the heart" ("pulse" in phrase pulsus venārum/artēriārum, literally, "beating of the veins/arteries"), noun of action from pellere "to beat against, push, strike, rouse, expel, repulse," of uncertain origin

Note: The etymology of pellere is problematic, because it lacks an obvious formal and semantic counterpart in other Indo-European languages. A traditional explanation derives it from a base *pel-d-, with the *-d- a present-tense formative marking an action reaching a definite termination (thus Ernout and Meillet in Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue latine, 8. édition, 1985; cf. tender entry 3). A hypothetically related form would be Greek pállō, pállein "to poise (a missile before it is thrown), brandish, swing, shake" (Epic aorist pêlai, 3rd singular passive pálto), though semantically the comparison is weak. A base *pel-d- would correctly produce the past participle pulsus (from *poltos < *pl̥d-t-os); however the frequentative verb pultāre "to strike repeatedly," attested in Plautus alongside pulsāre, suggests that the original past participle may have been *pultus. According to an alternative hypothesis, pellere is descended from an Indo-European base *pelh₂- "approach, draw near," seen in Greek pílnamai "I draw near to, make contact with," 3rd singular aorist plêto, verbal adjective in the negated form áplētos, áplātos "unapproachable, monstrous." (The assumed semantic shift is from "approach, touch" to "push, strike.") Both Latin and Greek verbs would continue a present with nasal infix *pl̥-ne-h₂-/pl̥n-h₂-. These presumably are seen also in Umbrian ampentu, apentu, ampetu, 3rd singular imperative (allegedly "touches, brings near," with the prefix an- "up, upon," but the meaning of this verb, describing the first action of an animal sacrifice in the Iguvine Tables, is quite uncertain); Old Irish ˑella in adˑella "(s/he) visits, approaches," doˑella "(s/he) turns aside, goes astray" (< *φal-na-?; e-vocalism is secondary) and eblaid "(s/he) will drive/impel," suppletive future to aigid "(s/he) drives" (< *pi-plā-); Middle Welsh el, 3rd person singular present subjunctive of mynet "to go" (< *pel-ase/o-). Note that alongside pellere there is a group of first-conjugation verbs with the same base pell- that occur only with prefixes: appellāre "to speak to, address, name," compellāre "to address, appeal to, rebuke," interpellāre "to interrupt" (see appeal entry 2, compellation, interpellate). According to P. Schrijver (The Reflexes of the Proto-Indo-European Laryngeals in Latin, Rodopi, 1991, pp. 408-12), these are a relic of an original nasal present *pel-n-a-C (< *pl̥-ne-h₂- with full-grade vocalism) given a thematic suffix *-i̯e/o- in derivatives. These verbs have the common underlying sense "to address (positively or negatively)," which fits fairly well with the hypothetical meaning "approach" of the base *pelh₂-. For English borrowings of prefixed forms of pellere see compel, dispel, expel, impel, propel, repel.

Verb

Middle English pulsen "to throb," in part borrowed from Latin pulsāre "to strike with repeated blows, beat, (in passive) beat wildly (of the heart)," in part verbal derivative of pous, pouce, pulse pulse entry 1 — more at pulse entry 1

Noun (2)

Middle English puls, probably from Anglo-French puuiz gruel, from Latin pult-, puls, probably from Greek poltos