'Pulse' is Latin for 'the driving' — blood driven through the body, from 'pellere' (to push).
The rhythmic throbbing of arteries as blood is propelled through them by the heartbeat; any regular, rhythmic beating or throbbing.
From Old French 'pous' (later 'pouls'), from Latin 'pulsus' (a beating, a striking), noun use of the past participle of 'pellere' (to drive, to push, to strike). The PIE root is *pel- (to push, to drive, to strike). The medical sense — the throbbing felt in arteries — was already established in Latin, where physicians like Galen wrote extensive treatises 'De Pulsibus' (On Pulses). The same root gives
The ancient Greek physician Herophilus of Alexandria (c. 335–280 BCE) was the first to use a water clock to measure pulse rate, and he composed a treatise comparing pulse rhythms to musical meters. He classified pulses as 'ant-like' (weak and fast), 'gazelle-like' (bounding), and other animal metaphors — inventing clinical pulse-taking nearly 2,300 years ago.