incitement

Etymology

It is formed from English incite + -ment.^[2][3][4] The OED and Dictionary.com compare Latin incitāmentum and French incitement, the French word being recorded from the 16th century;^[2][4] Etymonline instead takes the English noun straight from that French word.^[5] Incite is from Middle French enciter,^[6] also inciter,^[2][5] from Latin incitō (“to put into rapid motion; to rouse, urge”),^[2][5] from in- and citō (“to set in rapid motion, rouse”),^[2][5] the frequentative of cieō (“to put in motion, stir”).^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The action of rousing someone to act: 1594, in R. Carew's translation of Huarte's Examination of Mens Wits.^[2] Etymonline likewise has the 1590s,^[5] and Dictionary.com 1585–95.^[4] The Shorter Oxford dates the word earlier, to the late 15th century.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The older noun was incitation, from the early 15th century.^[5] Within two years of its first record incitement could also name the thing that incites, a motive or spur,^[2][3] which is the only sense in Johnson (1755), who gave "motive; incentive; impulse" with quotations from Hooker, Milton and Pope.^[7] In current usage the word is especially associated with provoking unlawful behaviour, as in a charge of incitement to civil disobedience.^[8][3]

Timeline

• 1594 – the action of inciting; instigation.^[2]
• 1596 – something that incites; a stimulus or incentive.^[2][3]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act of urging someone to unlawful behaviour: incitement to violence.^[8][3]
2. The act of inciting or rousing to action, or the state of being incited.^[9][2]
3. Something that incites; a stimulus or incentive: The prize was an incitement to further effort.^[9][2][3]

Word family

• nonincitement

Related words

• incite
• incitation
• cite
• excite

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 f g 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 Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
5. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
7. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
8. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster