convulse
verb
Simple meaning
To suffer violent involuntary contractions of the muscles, causing one's body to contort.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
kuhnvuhlsSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
kənˈvʌls
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
intransitive
To suffer violent involuntary contractions of the muscles, causing one's body to contort.
transitive
To cause (someone) to suffer such contractions, especially as a result of making them laugh heartily.
Cause to contract
“The spasm convulses her facial muscles.”
intransitivefigurative
To be beset by political or social upheaval.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient (estimated)
- Typical Use
- Rare
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: To suffer violent involuntary contractions of the muscles, causing one's body to contort.
Used this way, convulse is a reasonably familiar word with a clearly unfavourable pull. It comes across as direct, sometimes bluntly so.
- Emotional tone
- Negative
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Serious and weighty
- Usage feel
- Blunt and forceful
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use convulse
- “The comedian convulsed the crowd.”verb
- “The spasm convulses her facial muscles.”verb
- “The muscles in her face convulsed.”verb
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: to suffer violent involuntary contractions of the muscles
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.