Meaning

verb expand and contract rhythmically; beat rhythmically

verb move with or as if with a regular alternating motion

verb produce or modulate (as electromagnetic waves) in the form of short bursts or pulses or cause an apparatus to produce pulses

originPerhaps formed within English as a back-formation from pulsation (attested from the early 15th century, in Middle English). A figurative derivation from New Latin pulsō, pulsātum (“(of an organ) to pulse, to emit a pulse”, intransitive) is also possible, itself a back-formation of New Latin pulsātiō (“pulsation”, 14th century), or derived from classical Latin pulsō (“to strike repeatedly”,…

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0