Systole

//ˈsɪstəli// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The rhythmic contraction of the heart, by which blood is driven through the arteries.

    "[…] I did almoſt beleeve, that the motion of the Heart vvas knovvn to God alone: For neither could I rightly diſtinguiſh, vvhich vvay the Diaſtole and Systole came to be, nor vvhen nor vvhere the dilation and conſtriction had its exiſtence."

  2. 2
    the contraction of the chambers of the heart (especially the ventricles) to drive blood into the aorta and pulmonary artery wordnet
  3. 3
    A shortening of a naturally long vowel.
  4. 4
    The shortest noncontractible loop on a compact metric space.
  5. 5
    The contraction of the contractile vesicles in certain algae, plasmodia, and zoospores.

Synonyms

All synonyms
abbreviationarsisastrictionastringencybeatbottleneck

Example

More examples

"Is systole when the heart contracts or when it expands?"

Etymology

Borrowed from New Latin, from Ancient Greek συστολή (sustolḗ), from συστέλλω (sustéllō, “to contract”), from σύν (sún, “together”) + στέλλω (stéllō, “to send”).

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.