incite

Etymology

It is borrowed from Middle French inciter (Old French also enciter, recorded from the 14th century),^[2][3][4] from Latin incitō (“to put into rapid motion; to rouse, urge on”),^[2][3][5] formed from in- (“in, on”) and citō (“to set in rapid motion, rouse”),^[3][2][6] the frequentative of cieō (“to put in motion, stir”).^[2][7][5] The American Heritage Dictionary traces the Latin verb to Proto-Indo-European *keiə- (“to set in motion”).^[7] Barnhart records the Middle English form encyten.^[8][4] The Latin verb is also the source of incitar, incitar and incitare.^[2] It belongs to the family of cite.^[3][9][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

To urge or spur someone on, to stir up or animate: 1483, in Caxton's translation of Caton.^[2] Barnhart dates the Middle English form encyten to 1447,^[8][4] and Etymonline dates the verb to the mid-15th century.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The verb first took a person as its object, urged on to do something or to some action.^[2][11] From 1627 it could also take the action itself as its object, to provoke or bring about something.^[2] Johnson (1755) defined it as to stir up, to push forward in a purpose, to animate or spur, and quoted Shakespeare's Henry V.^[12] Merriam-Webster still distinguishes the two uses: moving people to act, and bringing something such as retaliation into being.^[13]

Timeline

• 1447 – encyten, to move to action.^[8][4]
• 1483 – to urge or spur on a person, to stir up.^[2]
• 1627 – to provoke or bring about an action.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To stir up or urge someone to act, especially to do something violent or unlawful: Leaflets were handed out to incite the workers to strike.^[14][13][2]
2. To bring about or provoke an action or feeling: Such remarks are likely to incite unrest.^[13][2]

Word family

• incitement
• inciter
• incitant
• incitable
• incitingly
• reincite
• unincited

Related words

• excite
• cite
• recite

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
6. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
9. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
11. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
14. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins