excite

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English exciten,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Old French exciter, also esciter,^[5][2][3] or directly borrowed from Latin excitō (“to rouse, call forth, produce”),^[2][3][6][7] a frequentative of excieō (“to call forth, instigate”),^[2][5][8] formed from ex- (“out”) and cieō (“to set in motion, call”),^[2][5][9] from Proto-Indo-European *keie- (“to set in motion”).^[2] The Anglo-Norman verb is recorded from the second quarter of the 13th century, meaning to incite, rouse or urge on.^[10] The same Latin verb is the source of cite, incite, recite and solicit.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

To move, stir up, instigate: before 1340, in Richard Rolle's Psalter.^[5][3] Barnhart dates the sense "to stir up the feelings of" to before 1387, in Trevisa's translation of Higden's Polychronicon.^[3]

Semantic evolution

For centuries excite was a fairly neutral verb meaning to provoke or produce a response, as in "excite comment".^[9] From 1393, in Gower, it meant to call up or awaken a feeling or faculty,^[5][2] and by 1398 it meant to bring about a condition or action.^[5] Johnson (1755) defined it as "to rouse; to animate; to stir up; to encourage".^[11] A scientific sense, to produce electric or magnetic activity, is recorded from 1646, in Sir Thomas Browne,^[5] and a physiological one, to stimulate a bodily organ, from the early 1830s.^[5][2] The sense of agitated elation, rousing someone to strong emotion, appeared only in 1821;^[5][2] Ayto places it in the mid 19th century,^[9] and Weekley notes that the colloquial use of exciting is of the 19th century.^[12] In physics it also means raising an atom, nucleus or particle to a higher energy state.^[4]

Timeline

• before 1340 – to stir up, instigate, incite.^[5][3]
• 1393 – to awaken a feeling or faculty.^[5]
• 1398 – to bring about, provoke (an action or condition).^[5]
• 1646 – to produce electric or magnetic activity in.^[5]
• 1821 – to move to strong emotion.^[5][2]
• 1832 – to stimulate a bodily organ or tissue.^[5]
• 1879 – in photography, to make a plate sensitive to light.^[5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To make someone feel strong emotion, especially eager anticipation or agitation: The news of the trip excited the children.^[13][4][5]
2. To call forth a feeling or response; to arouse: Her remarks excited suspicion.^[13][4][5]
3. To bring about or stir up: to excite unrest.^[13][5]
4. To arouse sexually.^[13][4]
5. (physiology) To stimulate an organ, tissue or nerve into activity.^[13][4][5]
6. To produce a magnetic field in, or set up an electric current in.^[4][13][5]
7. (physics) To raise an atom, nucleus or electron to a higher energy state.^[4][13]

Word family

• excitedly
• excitability
• excitable
• overexcite

Related words

• excitement
• excitation
• cite
• incite
• recite
• solicit

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ a b c d Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
10. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
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. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
13. ^ a b c d e f g Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins