stimulancy

English

Etymology

stimulate +‎ -ancy

Noun

stimulancy (uncountable)

1. The quality of being stimulating.
   • 1839, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Henry Nelson Coleridge, Aids to Reflection, page liii:

     Let then its comparative merits and demerits, in respect of style and stimulancy, possess a proportional weight, and no more, in determining your judgment for or against its contents.

   • 1851, The Monthly Christian spectator, page 231:

     And if the water offered to us has been as fresh as the wit, and the wine as old and rich as the recollections, then recollections and wit have had especial charm and stimulancy.

   • 1857, William Greenough Thayer Shedd, “Africa and Colonization.” An address delivered before the Massachusetts Colonization Society, May 27, 1857, page 15:

     It would be well if his already over-wrought stimulancy could be somewhat tranquillized and enriched by the languor and sluggishness of the tropics.

2. The act of stimulating; stimulation.
   • 1864, R.M. Abercrombie, The Prayer Book and Its Story: Principally Designed for the Young:

     I conceive extemporaneous worship has hitherto prevailed, because the appetite for devotion has needed the stimulancy of human passion and social excitement.

   • 1882, Hardwicke's Science-gossip, page 111:

     The above work is edited by Sir Charles's sister-in-law, and is composed of many pleasantly-written letters, collected from friends and relations, most of them written by Sir Charles under the stimulancy of fresh scenery, or visits to famous geological sections, or to celebrated geologists.

   • 2013, John Ellor Taylor, The Aquarium: Its Inhabitants, Structure, and Management, →ISBN, page 10:

     Unquestionably the first step in this direction was made by Dr. Priestley, of Birmingham, who observed that oxygen gas was given off by plants when under the active stimulancy of sunlight.

Anagrams

• unmystical