kinesis

¹

[ ki-nee-sis, kahy- ]

noun

, Physiology.

1. the movement of an organism in response to a stimulus, as light.

-kinesis

²

1. a combining form with the general sense “movement, activity,” used in the formation of compound words, often with the particular senses “reaction to a stimulus” ( photokinesis ), “movement without an apparent physical cause” ( telekinesis ), “activity within a cell” ( karyokinesis ).

kinesis

/ kɪˈniːsɪs; kaɪ- /

noun

1. biology the nondirectional movement of an organism or cell in response to a stimulus, the rate of movement being dependent on the strength of the stimulus

Word History and Origins

Origin of kinesis¹

1900–05; < Greek kī́nēsis movement, equivalent to kīnē-, verbid stem of kīneîn to move + -sis -sis

Origin of kinesis²

< Greek -kīnēsis; kinesis

Example Sentences

One mural even steps on this column’s theme: “Venice Kinesis” features a roller skater posed like the Roman goddess of love in the Boticelli painting “the Birth of Venus” with a speech bubble reading: “HISTORY IS MYTH.”

From Los Angeles Times

This season’s pieces merged the kinesis of aquatic life with the stasis of geometric shapes.

From Seattle Times

We invoke healing through kinesis.

From Scientific American

If you pull back the plunger of a pinball machine ever so slowly, your wrist can feel the delicious tension building in each coil of the metal spring, one after the next, as the kinesis of anticipation moves from the machine into your body.

From Salon

Nikita then created three images by layering all the filmed footage in a time-lapse spanning the duration of the spoken recording, and collapsed it into static kinesis.

From Los Angeles Times

Words That Use -kinesis

What does -kinesis mean?

The combining form -kinesis is used like a suffix meaning “movement, activity.” It can have a variety of senses, including “reaction to a stimulus,” “movement without an apparent physical cause,” or “activity within a cell.” It is often used in scientific and technical terms, especially in biology.

The form -kinesis comes from Greek -kīnēsis, meaning “motion,” from the verb kīneîn, “to move.” The Latin cognate of kīneîn is ciēre (stem cit-), meaning “to move, set in motion,” which is the source of words such as cite and resuscitate. To learn more, check out our entries for both words.

What are variants of -kinesis?

While not a variant of -kinesis, the form -kinesia, meaning “movement, muscular activity,” as in hyperkinesia comes from the same Greek root. The adjectival form of -kinesis is -kinetic, as in bradykinetic. Want to know more? Read our Words That Use articles on -kinesia and -kinetic.

Examples of -kinesis

An example of a word you may have encountered that features -kinesis is telekinesis, or psychokinesis, “the purported ability to move or deform inanimate objects, as metal spoons, through mental processes.”

The tele- part of the word means “distant,” from Greek têle. As we already know, -kinesis means “movement.” Telekinesis literally translates to “movement [at a] distance.”

What are some words that use the combining form -kinesis?

• cytokinesis
• enterokinesis
• heterokinesis
• hypokinesis
• ookinesis
• photokinesis

What are some other forms that -kinesis may be commonly confused with?

• -esis
• -genesis

Break it down!

The combining form photo- means “light.” With this in mind, what does photokinesis mean?