the.com/impetus
The shove that turns thinking about it into actually doing it.
means A force or stimulus that gets something moving or keeps it going — the push behind the progress.
from Straight from Latin impetus, meaning an attack, assault, or vigorous onward rush — itself from impetere, 'to attack or assail,' built from in- ('toward') plus petere ('to seek, rush at, aim for'). The Romans used it for the force of a charging army or a hurled spear; English borrowed it in the 1600s for physics and momentum before it softened into the word we use for any push that sets a plan, project, or person into motion.
- latin root
- from impetere, to attack or rush at
- physics cousin
- old word for momentum before momentum existed
- common misuse
- not a cause, the push after one
- usually external
- often a crisis, rarely pure willpower