Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • transitive verb To provoke and urge on: synonym: provoke.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To move to action; stir up; instigate; spur on.
  • Synonyms Impel, Induce, etc. (see actuate), stimulate, urge on, rouse, fire, provoke, excite, encourage, animate, set on, drive, persuade. See list under impel.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To move to action; to stir up; to rouse; to spur or urge on.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb To rouse, stir up or excite.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb provoke or stir up
  • verb urge on; cause to act
  • verb give an incentive for action

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English encyten, from Old French enciter, from Latin incitāre, to urge forward : in-, intensive pref.; see in– + citāre, to stimulate, frequentative of ciēre, to put in motion; see keiə- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin incitare ("to set in motion, hasten, urge, incite"), from in ("in, on") + citare ("to set in motion, urge"), frequentative of ciere ("to rouse, excite, call").

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