excitable

Etymology

It is formed from English excite + -able.^[2][3][4] The OED, Merriam-Webster Unabridged and Dictionary.com see a Latin source as well: in their view the word is borrowed from Late Latin excitābilis.^[5][6][7] Etymonline notes that the Late Latin adjective meant “inciting, animating”,^[4] and Klein gives the same gloss while still deriving the English word from it.^[8] The base verb is from Old French esciter or directly from Latin excitō (“to rouse, call out”),^[4] the frequentative of excieō (“to call forth, instigate”),^[4][9][2] from ex- (“out”) and cieō (“to set in motion, call”),^[4][2] from Proto-Indo-European *keie- (“to set in motion”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Capable of being excited, or easily excited: 1609, in Bishop W. Barlow's Answer to Catholike English-man.^[5][6][2] Etymonline dates the adjective to about 1600,^[4] and Dictionary.com to 1600–10.^[7]

Semantic evolution

The OED gives a single sense, which joins “capable of being excited” to “easily excited”, with a construction in to:^[5] the Shorter Oxford quotes Hawthorne's “wonderfully excitable to mirth”.^[3] The noun excitability is recorded from 1788.^[2] The verb itself was fairly neutral, meaning to produce a response or provoke, until its modern emotional sense arrived, in 1821 according to Etymonline and in the mid 19th century according to Ayto.^[4][10] Webster (1828) put the physiological meaning first, defining the word as open to excitement and capable of increased action under stimulants, and “roused into action” second.^[11] Etymonline dates the verb's use for bodily organs and tissues from 1831.^[4] Modern dictionaries reverse Webster's order, with “easily excited” first and the response of tissue or a nerve to a stimulus second.^[9][12][13]

Timeline

• 1609 – capable of being excited, prone to excitement.^[5][6][2] Etymonline gives about 1600.^[4]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Easily excited or stirred up; volatile: The excitable puppy barked at every visitor.^[9][13][6]
2. Of living tissue, a cell or a nerve: able to respond to a stimulus.^{[9][12][13][6]}

Word family

• excitability
• excitably
• excitableness
• nonexcitable
• unexcitable

Related words

• excite
• excited
• excitement
• cite
• incite
• recite

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
8. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
10. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
11. ^ Webster, Noah (1828), An American Dictionary of the English Language, New York: S. Converse
12. ^ a b Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins