nisus

IPA: nˈɪsʌs

A mental or physical effort to attain a specific goal; a striving.
The periodic procreative desire manifested in the spring by birds, etc.
The contraction of the diaphragm and abdominal muscles to evacuate faeces or urine.

Examples of "nisus" in Sentences

"nisus"; not even _struggle_, in the sense of _contention_, an endeavour an effort, a strain.
And the effort of that nexus is, as Barfield likes to put it, a nisus — and a very useful word.
The following bird species occur in the Laurissilva forest: Accipiter nisus, Apus unicolor and Fringila coelebs maderensis.
'nisus' will, I think, be more profitably employed in enkindling meditation on holiness, and thirstings after the mind of Christ.
While our concerns surely be grounded in "abandonment, exposure, and vulnerability," it is worth staying awake to the evolutionary nisus that beckons.
The temptation to prove or disprove something with an aphorism or epigram secures instant juvenile glee, but nisus of impelling wider perspective flee.
He insists that religious belief as a whole is not superstition, and that it is true so far as it is an expression of a ˜nisus to totality™ or a ˜move to wholeness.™
Barfield believes in a nisus, a struggling to be born and to emerge into consciousness of the internal ordering principle by which a plant develops, an embryo develops, etc.