Definition of "efferent" [ef•fe•rent]

• Directed away from a central organ or section. (adjective)
• Carrying impulses from the central nervous system to an effector. (adjective)
• An efferent organ or body part, such as a blood vessel. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "The fibres which come ultimately from the ventral aspect of the spinal marrow, are those which carry an influence outwards, and produce a contraction in the muscles, and are therefore called efferent or motor."
• "Whatever the specifics, they wrote, the important thing is that the stimulation affected only “a few cubic millimeters of neural tissue,” which means that “the depression probably resulted from the stimulation of afferent, efferent, or passing fibers within the substantia nigra or from the inhibition of those fibers.”"
• "Motor neurons make up the efferent neurons of both the somatic and autonomic nervous systems."