appulse

Noun

appulse (plural appulses)

1. An energetic movement towards or against something; a push, a strike.
   • The remainder, […] thus retreats, that is, by the continual appulſe of the Sap, is in part carried off into the Cortical Body back again, the Sap vvhereof it novv tinctures into good Aliment: […]1671 December 17 (Gregorian calendar; indicated as 1672), Nehemiah Grew, “Of the Root”, in The Anatomy of Vegetables Begun. […], London: […] Spencer Hickman, printer to the R[oyal] Society, […]...
   • [T]he vivacity of these trains of ideas, passing in the imagination, is greatly increased by […] their not being disturbed or dissevered either by the appluses of external bodies, as in surprize; or by our voluntary exertions in comparing them with our previous knowledge of things, as in reasoning...1789, Erasmus Darwin, The Loves of the Plants, J. Johnson, page 47
2. A close approach of two heavenly bodies; a conjunction or occultation.