Hebb

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Surname of the Canadian psychologist Donald Olding Hebb, known for proposing how connected neurons strengthen together
2. Name of the Canadian neuropsychologist who proposed that repeated joint firing of neurons strengthens the links between them
3. The surname of a twentieth-century Canadian psychologist whose theory of synaptic reinforcement shaped modern neuroscience

Etymology: "Hebb" is a surname, and as an English and Dutch surname it is a shortened form of "Herbert." The name Herbert itself comes from Germanic elements meaning roughly "army" and "bright" or "famous," so the surname carries that old martial and renowned sense, worn down over centuries of everyday use. The clipping works the way many personal names have worn down in speech: the full name is trimmed to a short, familiar form that then becomes a family name in its own right. Its best-known bearer is the Canadian psychologist Donald Hebb, whose work on how connections between neurons strengthen with use gave the surname a second life in science, where "Hebbian" describes learning rules based on his ideas.