excitation

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English excitacioun,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Old French excitation,^[5][6][7][8] from Late Latin excitātiō (“a rousing, stirring”),^[6][8][5][4] a noun of action formed on the past participle of Latin excitō (“to call out, wake, rouse, stir up”).^[5][6][8] Merriam-Webster Unabridged gives the French source as Middle French.^[3] The Anglo-Norman excitacion is recorded from 1345, meaning incitement, instigation and encouragement, and also a royal writ urging officials to enforce the law.^[9] Etymonline describes the Latin verb as a frequentative of excieō (“to call forth, instigate”), from ex- (“out”) and cieō (“to set in motion, call”), from Proto-Indo-European *keie- (“to set in motion”).^[5] The verb excite has the same source.^[5][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Gower's Confessio Amantis (1393), which the OED places under the state of being excited;^[6] Benson's concordance glosses Gower's single use as instigation.^[10] The Middle English Dictionary's quotations, from 1395 on, mean urging or prompting, instigation and awakening,^[2] and Dictionary.com dates the word to 1350–1400.^[4]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English the word belonged to moral and political language: urging someone to act, or inciting them, as in the Anglo-Norman writ of excitation.^[2][9] From c. 1400 it meant the action of exciting in general, with the phrase by (a person's) excitation, at someone's instigation, now rare or archaic.^[6] From 1538 it took on physical senses, such as setting something in motion or calling forth heat or sound,^[6] and Johnson (1755) defined it as the act of exciting or putting into motion, quoting Bacon, and as the act of rousing or awakening.^[11] The sense "a stimulus, encouragement" (1628) is now archaic.^[6][12] As excitement took over the emotional sense, the Shorter Oxford notes, excitation came to be used chiefly of inanimate things;^[12] the OED calls the sense "state of being excited" now somewhat rare.^[6] The scientific uses grew instead: inducing an electric or magnetic condition from 1656, in a translation of Hobbes,^[6] and in 20th-century physics the emission of a characteristic spectrum (1914) and the raising of an atom to a higher energy state (1921).^[6]

Timeline

• 1393 – first record, in Gower's Confessio Amantis, where the OED reads it as the state of being excited.^[6]
• 1395 – urging, prompting, instigation.^[2]
• c. 1400 – the action of exciting, also in the phrase by excitation, at someone's instigation.^[6]
• 1538 – in physical senses: setting in motion, calling forth heat or sound, stimulating an organ.^[6]
• 1628 – a means of excitement; a stimulus or encouragement (now archaic).^[6][12]
• 1656 – the inducing of an electric or magnetic condition.^[6]
• 1914 – in physics, the causing of a substance to emit its characteristic spectrum.^[6]
• 1921 – in physics, the raising of an atom to a higher energy state.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act or process of exciting, or the state of being excited.^[3][13][6]
2. Something that excites; a stimulus or encouragement.^[13][12][6]
3. In electricity, the production of a magnetic field in a dynamo, motor or loudspeaker, or the current in a field coil or the magnetizing current in a transformer.^[3][13]
4. In physiology, the action of a stimulus on an organism or its tissues, arousing its activity.^[13][3][12]
5. In physics, the raising of an atom, molecule or electron to a state of higher energy.^[6][12]

Word family

• photoexcitation
• preexcitation
• superexcitation

Related words

• excite
• excitement

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d 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)
3. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
5. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ a b Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
10. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
11. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins