Home › Glossary › Letter P

Pulse

Anatomy
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

The rhythmic beat of blood felt in the body, often representing life, time, urgency, or emotion.

Detailed Definition
A pulse gives poetry a bodily rhythm that can mirror meter, music, footsteps, or the repeated movement of waves. It may be felt at the wrist or throat in moments of fear, illness, desire, or attention, making inner life suddenly measurable. Poets use a racing pulse to convey alarm and a fading pulse to approach mortality. Because it is regular but never perfectly mechanical, the pulse can symbolize the living body's persistence amid uncertainty and change.
Example
Example in poetry:
“The pulse of the train shook the platform” extends pulse from the body to the rhythm of a city; A poet might write “I felt your pulse beneath my thumb” to make affection concrete and intimate; “The drum gave the crowd one pulse” uses pulse to describe shared energy; “At midnight, the house kept its pulse in the pipes” personifies a home through a quiet repeated sound
Additional Notes
Pulse gives a poem an internal rhythm, echoing heartbeat, clock time, or mounting danger. A quickened or fading pulse can make emotion physical and immediate.
Other Meanings of “Pulse”
Also Known As
Pulsation Heartbeat
Skip to main content