agitate

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin agitātus (“set in motion”), the past participle of agitō (“to set in motion, shake, stir up, discuss”),^[2][3][4][5] the frequentative of agō (“to drive, do”),^[6][3][7] from Proto-Indo-European *ag- (“to drive, draw out or forth, move”).^[3][6] Barnhart and Merriam-Webster Unabridged make the verb a use of the earlier participial adjective agitāt (“set in motion”),^[4][8] while the OED lists that adjective apart as a borrowing of its own and only compares it.^[2] The OED compares French agiter (13th century), Spanish agitar (before 1428) and Italian agitare (second half of the 13th century).^[2] Agitprop goes back to a derivative of the same Latin verb, reaching English through Russian.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The participial adjective, moved to and fro or set in motion, is recorded in 1449, in Metham's Amoryus and Cleopes,^[2][10][4] and a draft MED entry has it perhaps about 1400 in a treatise on urine, of humours "harde agitate", stirred and rolled about.^[10] The verb is first recorded, for disturbing or stirring up the mind, in a letter of King James VI of 1587,^[2] or 1586 in Barnhart,^[4] and the 1580s in Etymonline.^[3] The Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English also record a late Middle English verb meaning "to drive away".^[11][12]

Semantic evolution

Ayto notes that the Latin verb's physical sense of shaking and its figurative sense of perturbing were both in English from the start,^[9] and the OED dates them close together: the mind stirred up in 1587, a person made anxious in 1591, a thing shaken in 1599.^[2] A wider sense "to set in motion, actuate" lasted from 1592 to 1748.^[2][8] The Latin verb's senses of dealing with and turning over in the mind also came across: to discuss or debate from 1598, to consider or plot from 1629, and to act as an agent from 1634 to 1698,^[2] with Etymonline dating "discuss" to the 1640s.^[3] Weekley notes that the earliest agitators were the delegates of the private soldiers in the Parliamentary army of 1647–9.^[13] Stirring up a population by appeals is dated from 1662.^[2] Johnson (1755) listed moving, shaking, perturbing and discussing, with "to agitate a question" as his example.^[14] The modern political sense, of keeping an issue constantly in public view, is recorded from 1828,^[2][3] in a letter of the Marquis of Anglesey, whom Ayto quotes as telling an Irish deputation "agitate, agitate, agitate!"^[9]

Timeline

• 1449 – adjective agitat, moved to and fro, shaken (obsolete by 1674).^[2][10]
• 1566 – adjective, in Scots, debated, discussed (obsolete by 1713).^[2]
• 1587 – to disturb or stir up the mind.^[2]
• 1591 – to make a person worried or nervous.^[2]
• 1592 – to set in motion, actuate (obsolete by 1748).^[2]
• 1598 – to discuss, debate.^[2]
• 1599 – to move to and fro, shake.^[2]
• 1629 – to consider, revolve in the mind.^[2]
• 1634 – to act as an agent or manager (obsolete by 1698).^[2]
• 1662 – to stir up a population by appeals or propaganda.^[2]
• 1828 – to keep a political issue constantly under discussion.^[2][3]

Meanings

Verb

1. To trouble or disturb a person or a person's mind; to make anxious: The news agitated the whole household.^[15][8][2]
2. To move vigorously; to shake or stir: Agitate the mixture before pouring it.^[15][8][2]
3. To try to stir up public opinion for or against something, keeping an issue constantly before the public: The tenants agitated for lower rents.^[15][2]
4. To discuss or debate a question, or push it forward; now rare.^[15][2][11]
5. To stir up or provoke a population by appeals or propaganda.^[2]
6. (archaic) To turn over in the mind; to plan busily.^[2][11]
7. (obsolete, 1592–1748) To set in motion; to actuate.^[2][11][8]
8. (obsolete, 1634–98) To manage as an agent.^[2][11]

Word family

• agitatedly
• agitative
• agitation
• agitational
• overagitate
• reagitate

Related words

• agitator
• agent
• act
• agitprop

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
10. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
11. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
15. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins