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CONVULSIVE
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Affected by involuntary jerky muscular contractions; resembling a spasm
Example:
spastic movements
Synonyms:
convulsive; spasmodic; spastic
Classified under:
Similar:
unsteady (subject to change or variation)
Derivation:
convulse (contract involuntarily, as in a spasm)
convulse (cause to contract)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Resembling a convulsion in being sudden and violent
Example:
convulsive laughter
Classified under:
Similar:
violent (acting with or marked by or resulting from great force or energy or emotional intensity)
Derivation:
convulse (be overcome with laughter)
convulse (make someone convulse with laughter)
Context examples:
The frequency of attacks is reduced by depression of nerve transmission in the motor cortex and elevation of the threshold of the CNS to convulsive stimuli, probably due to direct modification of membrane function in excitable cells and/or alteration of chemically mediated neurotransmission.
(Methsuximide, NCI Thesaurus)
It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
Then, as I approached the door, she seized my sleeve and pulled me back with convulsive strength.
(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
It seemed to me that he was making desperate efforts to restrain a convulsive attack of laughter.
(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
The operation was performed amidst the fiercest yells and the most convulsive plunges.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
“You shall not stir,” cried the champion, seizing the inn-keeper in a convulsive grasp.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Then Peggotty fitted her mouth close to the keyhole, and delivered these words through it with as much feeling and earnestness as a keyhole has ever been the medium of communicating, I will venture to assert: shooting in each broken little sentence in a convulsive little burst of its own.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
These last words were in Greek, and at the same instant the man with a convulsive effort tore the plaster from his lips, and screaming out ‘Sophy!
(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
He was up again in a moment, and with convulsive strength he seized Holmes by the throat, but I struck him on the head with the butt of my revolver, and he dropped again upon the floor.
(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Mr. Rochester, on hearing the name, set his teeth; he experienced, too, a sort of strong convulsive quiver; near to him as I was, I felt the spasmodic movement of fury or despair run through his frame.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
