Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Word of the Day

Pavlovian
 \pav-loh-vee-uhn, -law-, -lov-ee-\, adjective;  
1.of, pertaining to, or characteristic of Pavlov or his work, especially of experiments in which he elicited predictable responses from laboratory animals.

Quotes:
They are like those “assorted” cookies that differ from one another only in shape and shade, whereby their shrewd makers ensnare the salivating consumer in a mad Pavlovian world where, at no extra cost, variations in simple visual values influence and gradually replace flavor, which thus goes the way of talent and truth.
-- Vladimir Nabokov, "Lance," The New Yorker, February 2, 1952

This is known as a Pavlovian effect, I tell the boy as I pour a tumbler for him to drink, my gums smarting like hell just from the stink.
-- Heather McGowan, "Duchess of Nothing," 2006

Origin:
Pavlovian entered English in the 1920s as a term for followers of the work of the Russian physiologist Ivan Petrovich Pavlov.

Dictionary.com