n. Any action in resistance or response to the influence of another action or power; reflexive action or operation; an opposed impulse or impression.n. In dynamics, a force called into being along with another force, being equal and opposite to it.n. Action contrary to a previous influence, generally greater than the first effect; in politics, a tendency to revert from a more to a less advanced policy, or the contrary.n. In chem., the mutual or reciprocal action of chemical agents upon each other.n. total loss of irritability of the nerve below the lesion; on direct stimulation of the musclen. loss of irritability for very brief currents, such as induction-shocks;n. retention and even increase of irritability for making and breaking of currents of longer duration (this galvanic irritability also becomes lost in the terminal stages of the severest forms);n. increase of irritability for making currents at the anode as compared with the cathode, so that the anode closing contraction may exceed the cathode closing contraction;n. a sluggishness of contraction and relaxation.n. In pathology, the response of a nerve or muscle to an applied stimulus.n. In serumtherapy, the occurrence of an interaction between two substances, as between an agglutinin and an agglutinable substance, or between toxin and antitoxin.n. of measuring the rate of certain psychical and psychophysical processes.