Word.ws English Dictionary

systole

UK/ˈsɪstəli/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

New Zealand/ˈsəstəli/

systole noun: the rhythmic contraction of the heart, by which blood is driven through the arteries.

systole: the rhythmic contraction of the heart, by which blood is driven through the arteries
Image: Mariana Ruiz Villarreal ( LadyofHats ), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

systole (countable and uncountable, plural systoles)

  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.1653, William Harvey, “The Causes which Mov’d the Author to Write”, in [anonymous], transl., The Anatomical Exercises of Dr. William Harvey […] Concerning the Motion of the Heart and Blood. […]...
    • A double systole catapulted him into full consciousness again, and he promised his uncorrected self that he would limit his daily ration of cigarettes to a couple of heartbeats.1972, Vladimir Nabokov, Transparent Things, McGraw-Hill, published 1972, pages 78–9
  2. (rhetoric) A shortening of a naturally long vowel.
  3. The shortest noncontractible loop on a compact metric space.
  4. The contraction of the contractile vesicles in certain algae, plasmodia, and zoospores.

systole meaning in Tamil, Arabic and Vietnamese

systole in Tamil

இதயம் சுருங்குதல், இதயச் சுருக்கம், ஒத்திசைச்சுருங்கல், சித்தொலி, இதயச்சுருக்கம், சுருக்கம்

systole in Arabic

contraction of the heart
اِنْقِبَاض inqibāḍ

systole in Vietnamese

contraction of the heart
tâm thu, thu tâm

Antonyms of systole

Forms of systole

pluralsystoles

Origin of systole

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

Words formed from systole

Questions about systole

What does systole mean?
Systole means the rhythmic contraction of the heart, by which blood is driven through the arteries.
What is systole in Tamil?
Systole in Tamil is இதயம் சுருங்குதல், இதயச் சுருக்கம், ஒத்திசைச்சுருங்கல். See Systole meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is systole?
Systole is a noun.
How do you pronounce systole?
Systole is pronounced /ˈsɪstəli/ (UK).
What is the plural of systole?
The plural of systole is systoles.

Words near systole in the dictionary

  1. systems theory
  2. systems-on-chip
  3. systemswide
  4. systemwide
  5. systemwise
  6. systole
  7. systoles
  8. systolic
  9. systolic array
  10. systolic arrays
  11. systolic blood pressure

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: systole (page history and authors); systole (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-systole.wav.

Cite this entry: “systole.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/systole. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.