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Agitate   Listen
verb
Agitate  v. t.  (past & past part. agitated; pres. part. agitating)  
1.
To move with a violent, irregular action; as, the wind agitates the sea; to agitate water in a vessel. "Winds... agitate the air."
2.
To move or actuate. (R.)
3.
To stir up; to disturb or excite; to perturb; as, he was greatly agitated. "The mind of man is agitated by various passions."
4.
To discuss with great earnestness; to debate; as, a controversy hotly agitated.
5.
To revolve in the mind, or view in all its aspects; to contrive busily; to devise; to plot; as, politicians agitate desperate designs.
Synonyms: To move; shake; excite; rouse; disturb; distract; revolve; discuss; debate; canvass.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Agitate" Quotes from Famous Books



... rights of nature in order to secure the freedom of grace. Yesterday he agitated for the abolition of slavery, to-day he agitates for negro suffrage, negro equality, and announces that when he has secured that he will agitate for female suffrage and the equality of the sexes, forgetting or ignorant that the relation of equality subsists only between individuals of the same sex; that God made the man the head of the woman, and the woman for the man, not the man for the woman. Having obliterated ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson

... interests. At all events, gentlemen, the respective advantages of aristocracy and democracy are a moot point. Well then, finding the question practically settled in this country, you will excuse me for not wishing to agitate it. I give you complete credit for the sincerity of your convictions; extend the same confidence to me. You are democrats; I am an aristocrat. My family has been ennobled for nearly three centuries; they bore a knightly name before their elevation. They have mainly and materially ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli

... came a new trouble. Thoughts and purposes so incendiary as those I now cherished, could not agitate the mind long, without danger of making themselves manifest to scrutinizing and unfriendly beholders. I had reason to fear that my sable face might prove altogether too transparent for the safe concealment of my hazardous enterprise. Plans of greater moment have leaked ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass

... slender, thin, tapering. afligido, -a troubled, distressed. afligir pain, grieve. afrenta f. insult, affront. gil adj. nimble, light. agilidad f. quickness, nimbleness, activity. agitar agitate, move, stir, stir up, sway, shake, disturb. agolpado, -a curdled. agolpar rush, gather. agona f. agony, death struggle, pangs of death. agostar parch, wither. agradecer be grateful, render thanks, be grateful for. agradecido, ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup

... a state of society, not totally Utopian, in which the individual man need be less ashamed of his social fetters, in which he could more freely utter all his honest convictions, more boldly propound all his theories, more fearlessly agitate for their speedy realization; in which, in fact, each man can be so entirely himself as the society of England, such as it now is, such as generations of hard-thinking and hard-working Englishmen have made it, and left it as ...
— Chips From A German Workshop, Vol. V. • F. Max Mueller

... to this claim by the Free School Society Mr. Cooper took a prominent and ardent part. The advocates of unsectarian public schools were victorious; but the controversy continued to agitate the State until the passage by the legislature in 1842 of an act establishing in New York city a new board of education to control the schools supported from the funds of the State, and at the same time forbidding ...
— Peter Cooper - The Riverside Biographical Series, Number 4 • Rossiter W. Raymond

... them; but, seeing her excitement, and recollecting her own momentary interview with the young officer, and the forced intimacy and link that had been established between them by the kiss, he feared to agitate her further by telling her that that gay and beautiful young man had since been slain, and deposited in a bloody grave by his hands. And yet the recollection of that kiss caused a thrill of vengeful joy at the thought that the perpetrator had since expiated ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... indicated, they had failed: but now a stronger and more tactful grasp was to succeed in a feat which naturally became easier every year that removed the passions of the revolutionary epoch further into the distance. Men cannot for ever perorate, and agitate and plot. A time infallibly comes when an able leader can successfully appeal to their saner instincts: and that hour had now struck. Bonaparte's appeal was made to the many, who cared not for politics, provided that they themselves were left in security ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... William the Conqueror. You and we cried for a Parliament, and a Parliament was called, and wars, you know, presently began between the king that represented William the Conqueror and the body of the English people that were enslaved. We looked upon you to be our Chief Council to agitate business for us, though you were summonsed by the king's writ, and choosen by the Freeholders, who are the successors of William the Conqueror's soldiers. You saw the danger so great that without a war England was likely to be more enslaved, therefore you called upon ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens

... because, with her left hand, she lifted her gown a little, as if to walk more easily. With her right she held back a veil, fastened behind her head under the crown of laurel, as though to prevent its being carried away by the breeze, which seemed to agitate it. The whole of the drapery of the figure was made of divers-coloured marbles and jaspers; and, in particular, the gown of this fair Phoenician, falling in a thousand graceful folds, which still did not hide the exact proportion of her body, was of jasper, of a colour so deep that ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury

... and resentment, jealousy and remorse, in unfolding the strength and the weaknesses of our nature, in uniting sublimity of thought with the anguish of the keenest woe, in putting in motion the various impulses that agitate this our mortal being, and at last blending them in that noble tide of deep and sustained passion, impetuous but majestic, that 'flows on to the Propontic, and knows no ebb', that Shakespeare has shown the mastery of his genius ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt

... "Do not agitate yourself," Mrs. Dowsett said gently, pressing him quietly back on to the pillows from which he had risen in his excitement. "We will talk it over, and see what is for the best. It is but a solitary case yet, and may spread no further. In a few days we shall see how matters go. ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty

... then set the battle in array against the coming election. An agitation of almost unparalleled violence began. Public meetings, banquets, speeches, pamphlets, newspapers, all contributed not so much to agitate as to convulse the country. For all his easy manner Metcalfe was an indomitable fighter, and into this, his last fight, he threw himself with an amazing energy. And he did not have to fight alone. There was no ...
— The Winning of Popular Government - A Chronicle of the Union of 1841 • Archibald Macmechan

... Lingard took me back to the night of the burglary. I wondered if to tell Miss Emily would unduly agitate her. I think I would not have told her, but I caught the girl's eye, across the bed, raised from her knitting and fixed on me with a peculiar intensity. Suddenly it seemed to me that Miss ...
— The Confession • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... central power, which in reality was not strong, the republicans, and above all the Socialists, continued to agitate. One of the most influential, Louis Blanc, claimed that it was the duty of the Government to procure work for every citizen. The Catholic party, led by Lacordaire and Montalembert, united with the Socialists—as to-day in ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon

... things that agitate a mind anxious and mobile, selfish and passionate, desirous to surrender itself, prompt in disengaging itself, liking itself most of all among the beautiful things that it finds ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... raked the logs together, sprinkled over them the white wood-ashes lying on the hearth, and sat down to compose his thoughts. But they still ran high on their latest theme, and the running of the river tended to agitate rather than to quiet them. As he sat thinking, what little disposition he had had to sleep departed. He felt it hopeless to lie down yet, and sat dressed by the fire. Marguerite, Wilding, Obenreizer, the business he was then upon, and a thousand hopes and doubts that had nothing to ...
— No Thoroughfare • Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins

... of the participation of women Civil Service employees in woman suffrage organizations. I think perhaps I am a prejudiced partisan in this matter for I believe that the women should have the right to agitate for the suffrage. Furthermore, I think they are going to get the suffrage, and that it would be politically unwise for the administration to create the impression that it was attempting to block the movement. I should think it the part ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane

... William Case) opposed this change, and, in consequence, failed in their election by the Genesee Annual Conference as delegates to the General Conference. Mr. Ryan was chagrined at this result, and on his return to Upper Canada commenced to agitate for an entire separation from the American Church. A memorial to that effect was sent to the General Conference. The request was not granted, but the Canadian work was set off to itself as the "Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Canada." This was not what ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson

... A sudden thin exaltation shook him like a fever chill. "I am more than a lion, Nedjma, I am a man—just as the Roumi" [Romans—i.e., Christians.] "are men—men who decide—men who undertake—agitate—accomplish ... and now, for the last time, I have decided. A fate has given thy loveliness to me, and no man shall take it away from me to enjoy. I will take it away from them instead! From all the men ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various

... and a little brandy or whisky given before the sponging if the pulse be feeble, will generally prevent a chill. Patients should be gently dried after the bath and covered with dry bedclothing. The utmost care should be taken not to agitate ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume I (of VI) • Various

... morning, a sermon on Foreign Missions, an unusually large contribution was taken up. In the afternoon, he listened to another sermon, by a brother, on Home Missions, and the subject became so important that he was led closely to agitate the question how much he should himself give to the cause. "I was, indeed, in a great strait between charity and necessity. I felt desirous to contribute; but, there I was, on a journey, and I had given so much in ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various

... the 14th. The whole search party assembled in the saloon to bid farewell to those who remained behind. The DUNCAN was just about to get under way, and already the vibration of the screw began to agitate the limpid waters of Talcahuano, Glenarvan, Paganel, McNabbs, Robert Grant, Tom Austin, Wilson, and Mulrady, stood armed with carbines and Colt's revolvers. Guides and mules awaited them at the landing ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne

... the unperturbed physician, "you must not agitate or excite her. A gentle step, a tranquil tone, and a cheerful and encouraging address, brief and affectionate, will be all that ...
— The Story of a New York House • Henry Cuyler Bunner

... its foundations; be the sport of the winds and waves; reel to and fro like a drunken man; move from post to pillar and from pillar to post, drive from post to pillar and from pillar to post, keep between hawk and buzzard. agitate, shake, convulse, toss, tumble, bandy, wield, brandish, flap, flourish, whisk, jerk, hitch, jolt; jog, joggle, jostle, buffet, hustle, disturb, stir, shake up, churn, jounce, wallop, whip, vellicate^. Adj. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... Distracted as you naturally are with all these unexpected and terrible events, you must recognize the truth that you are in no condition to take upon you the care of your son now. He would not know you, I fear, yet your voice might agitate him fatally. I do not forbid you to see him, but I do forbid that you should speak to him now, and I shall not answer for the consequences ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe

... existence. A new heaven is forming over our head behind the curtain of clouds which rises from our smoking battle-fields. A new earth is shaping itself under our feet amidst the tremors and convulsions that agitate the soil upon which we tread. But there is no such thing as a surprise in the order of Nature. The kingdom of God, even, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various

... my hand so frantically, and don't agitate me so, for heaven's sake! Oh, Hattersley! you were right: this woman will be the death of me, with her keen feelings and her interesting force of character. There, there, do ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte

... his walk, but the half-suppressed, passionate protest, whose underswell began to agitate her voice, arrested his attention, and he came to the table and stood ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson

... sadness descends upon the soul from their silent flight.—"Here I am, sunk down to the bottom of the river," Lavretzky says to himself again.—"And life is at all times tranquil, leisurely here," he thinks:—"whoever enters its circle must become submissive: here there is nothing to agitate one's self about, nothing to disturb; here success awaits only him who lays out his path without haste, as the husbandman lays the furrow with his plough." And what strength there is all around, what health there is in this inactive calm! Yonder now, under the window, a ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff

... from it; and the same in America, fighting for twenty-one years. And he asked them what they had to fight with against all those guns and arms?—nothing but a stump of a stick that they might cut down below in the wood. So he bid them give up their nightwalking, and come out and agitate in the daylight.' ...
— Poets and Dreamers - Studies and translations from the Irish • Lady Augusta Gregory and Others

... electric trolleys are overcrowded, certainly; but you can always find a place in them, and they carry you so rapidly that the discomfort is rendered as little irksome as possible. A society has been formed, I see, to agitate against this overcrowding; but it seems to me it will only waste its pains. Let it agitate for an underground railway, by all means; and if, as I gather, the underground railway scheme is obstructed by self-seeking vested interests, let it do its best to break ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer

... "where is the good of striving, if not against oneself? to agitate oneself for money, for glory, to conduct oneself so as to keep others down, and gain adulation from them, ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans

... on, do, drive): (1) agent, agitate, agile, act, actor, actuate, exact, enact, reaction, counteract, transact, mitigate, navigate, prodigal, assay, essay; (2) agenda, pedagogue, synagogue, actuary, redact, castigate, litigation, exigency, ambiguous, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... found in settling soldiers in the cotton country. Texas would be, perhaps, best suited for the purpose, and other regions may be selected as opportunity may suggest. With this course fully determined on, it would hardly be necessary to further agitate Emancipation, it would come of itself, and slave-labor would yield to the energy ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various

... Segur temporary charge of the editorial page, and, taking a desk in the news-room, centred his attention upon news and the news-staff. But he was careful not to agitate and antagonise those whose cooperation was necessary to success. He made only one change in the management; he retired old Bowring on a pension and appointed to the city editorship one of the young ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)

... past and present, can frank, as also, all Vice-Presidents, past and present; and there is a special act, enabling the widow of President Polk to frank. Why it is that widows of other Presidents do not agitate on the matter, I cannot understand. And all the Secretaries of State can frank; and ever so many other public officers. There is no limit in number to the letters so franked, and the nuisance has extended itself to so ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope

... magazines. I throw this hint out of the window of the "Atlantic," in the fervent hope that it will be seen, picked up, and pocketed by some reformer who is now out of business; and I would earnestly urge such individual to agitate the question with all his might, and wake up the community to the vital importance, by making use of "poetic fire" and "inspired frenzy" now going to waste, or some other instrumentality, of a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various

... without these blessings, and the highest Christian of all is he whose heart is so stayed on God, that he does not wish or need it; whose heart is so set on things above, that things below as little excite, agitate, unsettle, distress, and seduce him, as they stop the course of nature, as they stop the sun and moon, or change summer and winter. Such were the Apostles, who, as the heavenly bodies, went out "to all lands," full of business, and yet full too of sweet harmony, even to the ends of ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII (of 8) • John Henry Newman

... untainted with sin, but with such supernatural gifts, arising from the Divine Presence within him, that nothing was wanting but perseverance to his final perfection. The various elements in his nature were not, as now, at war with one another. His body did not blind the eye of his soul, and agitate it with the storms of concupiscence; nor did the soul employ the body as its instrument of rebellion against God. Though not yet admitted to that glorious vision of the Eternal which was to be the reward of his obedience, yet he lived in direct commerce with the world of spirits. He knew and conversed ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton

... private houses to worship God." {259b} The edifying controversies between these precisians and Grindal, the Bishop of London, are recorded by Strype. The bishop was no zealot for surplices and the other momentous trifles which agitate the human conscience, but Elizabeth insisted on them; and "Her Majesty's Government must be carried on." The precisians had deserted the English Liturgy for the Genevan Book of Common Order; both sides were appealing to Beza, in Geneva, and were ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang

... and gone with dear grandmother's youth, are fresh again; and myriads of children trip along on red-heeled shoes, and agitate the large rosettes, and glittering ribbons, and bright wreaths of flowers which deck them out like tender heralds of the spring. And with them mingle all those maidens holding picture-decorated fans with which they flirt—this is the derivation of our modern word—and the gay gallants with ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous

... supper arrived. Her nervousness vanished, and he got far away from the neighborhood of the subjects that, even in remotest hint, could not but agitate her. And as the food and the wine asserted their pacific and beatific sway, she and he steadily moved into better and better humor with each other. Her beauty grew until it had him thinking that never, not in the most spiritual ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips

... "Don't agitate yourself, Vera!" he begged, taking her hands. "I confess my guilt. I am an artist, have a susceptible temperament, and perhaps abandoned myself too much to my impressions. Then I am no stranger. Let us be reconciled, ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov

... you," Marcus said to her; but there was a trace of anxiety in his manner that did not escape her. "You must talk to him, of course; but you must be very careful not to agitate him; he wants all his strength for to-morrow;" for on the following day father and ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... which agitate the great metropolis, and even opinions, ready prepared, to the breakfast tables of our remotest farms, ere the controversial warmth has had time to cool. In the centre of this square, where you observe the larger character, a public orator, "vias et verba locans," ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 363, Saturday, March 28, 1829 • Various

... Pelle had learned something, none the less! The victory was to the strong, and their organization was not as yet sufficient. They must talk and agitate, and hold meetings! The tendency to embrace the new ideas certainly inclined the men to organize themselves, but their sense of honor was as yet undeveloped. The ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... the note upon the Platonians was visible. A tremendous fluttering agitated the members. It was a proposition calculated to agitate them. ...
— Emmy Lou - Her Book and Heart • George Madden Martin

... propaganda and to elude the Bourbon police. Crispi travelled in all parts of Sicily for several months, and in September he was able to report to Mazzini that the insurrection might be expected in a few weeks—which proved incorrect, but only as to date. Mazzini forbade his agents to agitate in favour of a republic; unity was the sole object to be aimed at; unity in whatever ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco

... "if I am wasted reading prayers for my old men, what are you, who come to agitate for my abolition? I think, too, almost anything would be better than to encourage the ignorant to make themselves judges of public institutions, which the wisest even find too delicate to meddle ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant

... unquestionably the ablest man of his time alive in Europe. Here is a story which he tells of a certain Cornish St. Kieran. The saint with thirty of his companions, was preaching within the frontiers of a lawless pagan prince; and, disregarding all orders to be quiet or to leave the country, continued to agitate, to threaten, and to thunder even in the ears of the prince himself. Things took their natural course. Disobedience provoked punishment. A guard of soldiers was sent, and the saint and his little band were decapitated. The ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude

... stage, which at this moment almost convulses the children of Nature who are seated in the pit, is highly descriptive of that refined apathy which characterises our people of fashion, and raises them above those mean passions that agitate ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler

... form independent corps, and, by means of raids, harass and molest the enemy. The strongest lion succumbs when stung by many bees. Every Prussian must turn conspirator, and prevail on his neighbor to join the great conspiracy; secret leagues and clubs must be instituted everywhere, and work and agitate until we are united like one man, and, with the resistless power of our holy wrath, expel the tyrant ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach

... amongst them. In any case a wash will do them no harm, and the process is a very simple one. Take a pail, half-filled with ova, and then fill up with water, and with a small lading-can lift some of the water out, and pour it back again, so as to cause a downward current, which will agitate the ova. Their specific gravity being greater than that of water, they immediately retire again to the bottom of the pail, and by at once pouring off as much water as is practicable, any floating particles of moss, etc., may be carried off. Should any be left, the process should be repeated, and ...
— Amateur Fish Culture • Charles Edward Walker

... Congress and on the stump. The Southerners, however, would not take warning. As they saw their long ascendency in the government coming to an end, their demands rose higher. Some of them actually began to agitate for a revival of the African slave trade; and this also Douglas had to oppose. His following in the Senate was now reduced to two or three, and one of these, Broderick, of California, a brave and steadfast man, was first defeated by the Southern interest, and then slain in a ...
— Stephen Arnold Douglas • William Garrott Brown

... accepting the concessions made in 1842 as final, continued to agitate and insist upon total repeal. They held meetings, made able speeches, published pamphlets, delivered lectures, and continued to keep before the English public the iniquity, as they said, of those laws which compelled the English artizan to eat dear bread. Sir Robert, ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke

... again dropped his head in a guilty fashion, but as soon as he had eaten his wisps of straw he began to blink his eyes and agitate his ears, then again discreetly, but eagerly, tugged at what was ahead of him; this in a manner that testified ...
— Nobody's Girl - (En Famille) • Hector Malot

... the next occasion for sending up verses, so far from attending to the orders issued, I double-shotted my guns; double applause descended on myself; but I remarked with some awe, though not repenting of what I had done, that double confusion seemed to agitate the ranks of my enemies. Amongst them loomed out in the distance my "annihilating" friend, who shook his huge fist at me, but with something like a grim smile about his eyes. He took an early opportunity ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various

... after that nervous attack this morning, of subjecting Blanche to any further suspense. I have thought of my niece's interests throughout this business; and if I now change my mind, and decline to agitate her by more experiments, ending (quite possibly) in more failures, it is because I am thinking of her interests still. I have no other motive. However numerous my weaknesses may be, ambition to distinguish myself as a detective policeman ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins

... astonished Ronald, accustomed to the more phlegmatic temperaments of the north. He tried to comfort him, but in vain, and when the surgeon came he intimated to Ronald that he had better leave him, as talking to a stranger seemed to agitate him in ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston

... against mine, and her ill-feeling will only be increased if she is told that we are encouraging you to disregard her wishes. Perhaps you may, ere long, have opportunities of seeing Mary more frequently; but, if that should be the case, I must especially request you not to talk of things that may agitate her. You have seen for yourself how excitable she is and how fragile she looks. Her little heart, her too precocious brain and feelings must have rest, must not be stirred and goaded by fresh incitements such as you are in a position to apply. The ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... that it could hardly be much improved upon, so far as percentage of extraction is concerned; and yet the waste of power which is involved is something outrageous. For the treatment of a thin layer of slimes, perhaps no thicker than a sixpence, it is necessary to violently agitate, with a reciprocating movement, a large and heavy framework. Sometimes the quantity of stuff put through as the result of one horse-power working for an hour is not more than about a hundredweight. The consequence is that in large mines the nests of vanners comprise scores or even hundreds ...
— Twentieth Century Inventions - A Forecast • George Sutherland

... noiseless flight. "Here I am at the very bottom of the river," thought Lavretsky again. "And always, at all times life here is quiet, unhasting," he thought; "whoever comes within its circle must submit; here there is nothing to agitate, nothing to harass; one can only get on here by making one's way slowly, as the ploughman cuts the furrow with his plough. And what vigour, what health abound in this inactive place! Here under the window the sturdy burdock creeps out of the thick grass; above it ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev

... professions and occupations hitherto closed against them, becomes every year more urgent. Though there are not in this country, as there are in the United States, periodical Conventions and an organized party to agitate for the Rights of Women, there is a numerous and active Society organized and managed by women, for the more limited object of obtaining the political franchise. Nor is it only in our own country and in America that women are beginning to protest, ...
— The Subjection of Women • John Stuart Mill

... "Don't agitate yourself," Cesare Orsi begged. "Sanviano will be absolutely contented to have you in my care. I am delighted. You shall go home directly in my carriage." He conducted her, with a show of form that in any one else or at another time she would have enjoyed hugely, to the street, where he handed her ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer

... looking at herself any more. Something had given her a shock both inwardly and outwardly. What that had been nobody guessed. Her husband knew it certainly, but he did not speak of it to his wife. Why agitate her again? ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig

... sustained by some brisk and lively emotion. To this method of thinking I so far agree, that I own the mind to be insufficient, of itself, to its own entertainment, and that it naturally seeks after foreign objects, which may produce a lively sensation, and agitate the spirits. On the appearance of such an object it awakes, as it were, from a dream: The blood flows with a new tide: The heart is elevated: And the whole man acquires a vigour, which he cannot command in his solitary and ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume

... little over twice as heavy as air; so in order to expedite the complete saturation of the water, it is convenient to remove the bottle A with its tube from bottle B, and after having closed the latter by its cork or stopper, to agitate it thoroughly by turning the bottle upside down. As the sulphurous acid gas accumulated in the air space over the water is absorbed by the water, a partial vacuum is created, and when the stopper is eased an inrush of air may be noted. When, after passing fresh ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 460, October 25, 1884 • Various

... like the discovery of unknown quantities, induced by the inevitable influence of time. Figures are the providence of history. Undoubtedly there are other elements in human progress; but in the multitude of hidden causes which agitate nations, there is none more powerful or constant, none less obscure, than the periodical explosions of the proletariat against property. Property, acting by exclusion and encroachment, while population was increasing, has been the life-principle ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon

... rose-top burner to minimise the danger of cracking the flask; and to the same end, well agitate the contents of the flask to ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre

... any sort of expostulation, started singing. Her voice was low and weird. The song was so extraordinary that he had to rub his eyes to ascertain whether he was awake or dreaming. The slow surprises of the grotesque melody began to agitate him in a horrible fashion; the words were pure nonsense—or else their significance was too ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay

... value and importance, controversies arose as to the ownership of almost every tract: and innumerable suits, great strife and excitement, prevailed in every neighborhood, and continued until within a late period, to agitate the whole body of society. The legislature of the state, by acts of limitation and judicious legislation upon the subject, have finally quieted the ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint

... members of Parliament; members of Parliament to be paid for their services; equal electoral districts. At the conclusion of the meeting, Daniel O'Connell rose and handed the petition to the secretary of the Workingmen's Association, saying, "There, Lovett, is your Charter. Agitate for it and never ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson

... no longer able to make a mystery of the long-pent up feelings that agitate her, pays me the most marked and tender attentions, and begs my acceptance of a quantity of little souvenirs: an image, a little vase, a little porcelain goddess of the Moon in Satsuma ware, a marvelously grotesque ivory figure;—I tremblingly follow her into the dark ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti

... at present agitate the country, the corn-law question is that which calls forth the most feeling; I mean on the part of those who oppose the restrictions on the introduction of foreign grain—for, on the other side, it appears to me that the battle is languidly fought. ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant

... all her soul betray. Then, as coy fears th' admiring gaze upbraid, Starts;—and these lines, with hurried pen pourtray'd, Slides in his half-clos'd hand;—and speeds away.— "Ye eyes, ye human stars!—if, thus conceal'd By Sleep's soft veil, ye agitate my heart, Ah! what had been its conflict if reveal'd Your rays had shone!"—Bright Nymph, thy strains impart Hopes, that impel the graceful Bard to rove, Seeking thro' Tuscan ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward

... the Civil Magistrate's powers and duties which had led him to declare himself so strongly for the preservation and extension of an Established Church. The more thorough-going champions of Voluntaryism in that day, Anabaptists and others, had begun, as we have seen, to agitate not only for the abolition of a national Church or State-paid clergy of any kind, but also for the abolition of the Universities, the public schools, and all endowments for science or learning. But, if Cromwell had so signally disowned ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... expose their daughters to knowledge of the distress in the world; they send them to hear missionary addresses on famines in India and China; they accompany them to lectures on the suffering in Siberia; they agitate together over the forgotten region of East London. In addition to this, from babyhood the altruistic tendencies of these daughters are persistently cultivated. They are taught to be self-forgetting ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams

... wishing to repeal it slander us foully: we value it as much as you do. Let it remain among our statutes, provided always that it remains as a dead letter. If you dare to put it in force, indeed, we will agitate against you; for, though we talk against agitation, we too can practice agitation: we will denounce you in our associations; for, though we call associations unconstitutional, we too have our associations: our divines shall preach about Jezebel: our tavern spouters ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... whole weight of passion and prejudice into one scale, and leaving the other quite empty. While the blow is coming, we prepare to meet it, we think to ward off or break its force, we arm ourselves with patience to endure what cannot be avoided, we agitate ourselves with fifty needless alarms about it; but when the blow is struck, the pang is over, the struggle is no longer necessary, and we cease to harass or torment ourselves about it more than we can help. It is not that the one belongs to the future ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... he hesitated for a moment to consider whether his unexpected appearance might not injuriously agitate his old friend. "I must leave it to Kezia to tell him. I can safely do that," he thought. "She is a strong-minded woman, and glad as she will be to see me, she, at all events, will not ...
— Owen Hartley; or, Ups and Downs - A Tale of Land and Sea • William H. G. Kingston

... question of the reason why the Uitlander should agitate and why the Boer was obdurate. The details of the long struggle between the seekers for the franchise and the refusers of it may be quickly sketched, but they cannot be entirely ignored by any one who desires to understand the inception of that great contest which was the ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle

... I shall tell her now," said Percy, "that I had received a letter and that I've seen you. But I shall tell her we parted the best of friends, and nothing must be done, above all things, to annoy or agitate her." ...
— Bird of Paradise • Ada Leverson

... said, "I beg you will not agitate yourself. You have no cause for agitation. It is not by my own wish that I intrude upon ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... Missouri applied for admission into the Union, the slavery question was discussed and finally settled by the so-called "Missouri Compromise" in 1820. Now, in 1849, a new question began to agitate both North and South. Before that time the debate had been as to the abolishing of slavery, but the question now changed to "Shall slavery be extended? Shall it be allowed in the country purchased from Mexico?" As this land had been ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... might make him pause; his own play, profoundly moralised as it was, might cause him to consider. Events of the day, crimes of passion, adulteries, poisonings, nameless horrors, might agitate his spirit. Had he not fed the full-blown passions of the time? What if Nicole's word that playwrights were public poisoners should be true? Probably various causes operated on the mobile spirit of Racine; certainly the Christian, of Jansenist education, who had slumbered within him, ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden

... Tom had resolved to take did not appear to agitate his stolid nature in the least. Nor did he give any sign of feeling disappointment or resentment. His whole simple faith was in young Archer now, ...
— Tom Slade with the Colors • Percy K. Fitzhugh

... subjects, and it was as a patriot and a man of humane nature that he had been shocked at the discovery that he had made, of the determination of the kings of France and Spain to extirpate the Protestants. He used this knowledge first to secretly urge the people of the Netherlands to agitate for the removal of the Spanish troops from the country; and although he had secret instructions from Philip to enforce the edicts against all heretics with vigour, he avoided doing so as much as was in his power, and sent ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty

... one of his most distinguished successors—to cultivate free commerce and honest friendship with all nations, but to make entangling alliances with none. A strict adherence to this policy has kept us aloof from the perplexing questions that now agitate the European world and have more than once deluged those countries with blood. Should those scenes unfortunately recur, the parties to the contest may count on a faithful performance of the duties incumbent on us as a neutral nation, and our own citizens may equally rely ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... interrupted the doctor, seeing the look in his patient's face; "but you mustn't agitate her now. And now, my good women"—turning to the others—"I think she can get along with her young friend here, whom I happen to know is a womanly young girl, and will be attentive ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various

... Cambray. Venice is represented by the winged Lion, and the powers of the Coalition are pourtrayed by various other beasts. Among the latter is a beautiful group in marble representing Ganymede and the Eagle. The terror depicted in the countenance of the beautiful boy, and the passion that seems to agitate the Eagle, are surprizingly ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye

... of hysterics, of course; knowing nothing about them, however, by my own experience. What could have happened to agitate her in ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins

... to form an acquaintance with Prince Louis-Ferdinand, the same whose warlike ardor so transported him, that his death was almost the precursor of the first reverses of his country. He was a man full of ardor and enthusiasm, but who, for want of glory, cultivated too much the emotions which agitate life. What particularly irritated him against Bonaparte was his practice of calumniating all the persons he dreaded, and even of degrading in public opinion those whom he employed, in order, at all risks, to keep them more strongly dependant on him. Prince Louis said to me frequently, ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein

... calm as May, The birds, conceiving a design To forestall sweet St. Valentine, In many an orchard, copse, and grove, Assembled on affairs of love; And with much twitter and much chatter, Began to agitate the matter. ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various

... known Him. Amid the clash of contending interests and worldly passions His solemn purpose steadily advances to its end, like the irresistible ocean current, which persists through all storms that agitate the surface, and draws them into the drift of its silent trend. Ahasuerus, Haman, Esther, Mordecai, are His instruments, and yet each of them is the doer of his or her deed, and has to answer to ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... been trying to persuade them to pave the way by a Commission of Inquiry, being certain that the facts on which we ought to agitate are imperfectly known. But Lord John is unfavourable, and the other Ministers do not venture to control the leader of the House of Commons. There will, therefore, be no previous inquiry; at least only the indirect one which the Government can make for itself. The measure will be ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville

... of the settled States were troublesome. And, to add to the embarrassments of our statesmen, the relations of the United States with the European powers were strained, and at times alarming. The two parties which had struggled to fashion the constitution continued to agitate the country in a more bitter rivalry than has been seen since, with the exception of the party excitement of the period just before the Rebellion. Their antagonism became more pronounced during Washington's presidency, by reason of the ...
— The Nation in a Nutshell • George Makepeace Towle

... in such a place as this," the desolate began, "To gaze upon the tempests wild that separate me from man; To muse upon the passing things that agitate the world— View myself as by a whirlwind to ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton

... I, "is the milky sap which is obtained from certain trees of the Euphorbium kind, by incisions made in the bark. It is collected in vessels, care being taken to agitate them, that the liquid may not coagulate. In this state they cover little clay bottles with successive layers of it, till it attains the required thickness. It is then dried in smoke, which gives it ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss

... identified with an image once most dear to him; but which had, long since, been absorbed in the pursuits of interest, and the struggles of ambition. The time had indeed gone by, when associations, blended with that image, could deeply agitate him; and, connected as they were, with his aversion to D'Aulney, they tended to excite emotions of anger ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney

... statues and reliefs. The wooden chests of Egyptian mummies are covered with painted and hieroglyphic presentations of religious subjects; but the colors were laid without regard to light and shade. The Egyptians did not seek to represent the passions and emotions which agitate the soul, but rather to authenticate events and actions; and hence their paintings, like hieroglyphics, are but inscriptions. It was their great festivals and religious rites which they sought to perpetuate, not ideas of beauty or of grace. Thus their paintings abound with dismembered ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord

... often being quite independent of scientific combinations, and they may become essentially dramatic, personal qualities and inspirations and a thousand other things frequently being the controlling elements. The passions which agitate the masses that are brought into collision, the warlike qualities of these masses, the energy and talent of their commanders, the spirit, more or less martial, of nations and epochs,[51]—in a word, every thing that can be called ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini

... doctor, "not just now. You still have some fever. The sight of your child would agitate you and do you harm. You must be ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... supposed that all these preparations were made unheeded by the inmates of the cottage; on the contrary, every feeling which can agitate the human breast, in witnessing such a scene, was actively alive. Mr. Wharton alone saw no hopes to himself in the termination of the conflict. If the British should prevail, his son would be liberated; but what ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper

... "Why will you agitate her, Mrs. Ormond, in this manner?" said Mr. Hervey, with an expression of sudden anger. It was succeeded by a look of such tender compassion for Virginia, that Mrs. Ormond rejoiced to have excited his anger; at any price she wished to serve ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth

... for you to read the wittiest or the most suggestive books: it is better, in general, to hear what is already known, and may be simply said. Much of the literature of the present day, though good to be read by persons of ripe age, has a tendency to agitate rather than confirm, and leaves its readers too frequently in a helpless or hopeless indignation, the worst possible state into which the mind of youth can be thrown. It may, indeed, become necessary for you, ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin

... Draupadi, and Dhrishtadyumna, and Shikhandi, and the Pancalas and the Somakas, desirous of rescuing Yudhishthira, surrounded him on all sides. Having taken their places around the king, the Pandavas, those bulls among men, began to agitate the hostile force like Makaras agitating the ocean. Indeed, they caused thy army to tremble like a mighty tempest shaking the trees. Like the great river Ganges agitated by a hostile wind, the Pandava host, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... Revolution—the revolution of frivolity. The Pope even had to become a master of the dance, recommending the "Furlana" instead of the "Tango," since all the Christian world, regardless of sects, was united in the common desire to agitate its feet with the tireless frenzy of the ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... is not to poke her fun at orators,' Nataly said. 'No, dearest; it would agitate me to go. I'm better here. I shall be at peace when the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... of Ismael Pasha had finally the usual effect on the Cretans, and they began to agitate for a petition to the Sultan, a procedure which time had shown to be absolutely useless as an appeal against the governor; and, while the agitation was in this embryonic condition, I decided to go back to Rome ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman

... important events to our humble couple. Life, when untainted by the crimes and artificial manners which destroy its purity, is a beautiful thing to contemplate among the virtuous poor; and, where the current of affection runs deep and smooth, the slightest incident will agitate it. So it was with Owen M'Carthy and his wife. Simplicity, truth, and affection, constituted their character. In them there was no complication of incongruous elements. The order of their virtues was not broken, nor the purity of their affections violated, by the anomalous blending together ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton

... we get up a musical society next year," suggested Ingred. "It's impossible this term—we've too much on our hands already—but if the societies are rearranged in September, we'll agitate to let music take a much bigger place than ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil

... resumed full sway, and all the methods of anti-war times had been renewed. President Johnson had differed with his party as to the best method of reconstructing the State governments of the South, which had been destroyed and impoverished by the war, and the press began to agitate the question of the next President. Of course, all Union men naturally turned to General Grant, and the result was jealousy of him by the personal friends of President Johnson and some of his cabinet. Mr. Johnson always seemed ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman

... amendment which makes it possible for the heirs of a person lynched to sue the county in which the crime is committed for from $500 to $5,000. This is the right way to do. Every state in the Union ought to be made to pay either one of these amounts. Why not let us agitate on these lines. The government can never find the offenders, but under this law they can find ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 52, No. 2, June, 1898 • Various

... Theobald gravely, "do not let us agitate ourselves unduly. If the hour of trial comes we shall be best prepared to meet it by having led a quiet unobtrusive life of self-denial and devotion to God's glory. Such a life let us pray God that it may please Him to enable us to pray that we ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler

... upon your grapevine. The survivors have greater powers of resistance—a larger measure of that mysterious something we call vitality. One horse will endure hardships and exposures that will kill scores of others. What will agitate one community will not in the same measure agitate another. What will break or discourage one human heart will sit much more lightly upon another. Life introduces an element of uncertainty or indeterminateness that we do not ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs

... suspect that the world has grown more wicked, or the human heart less susceptible, for I doubt whether there is any body now alive who has ever experienced a sufficient degree of pleasure at once to do more than agitate the nerves for a ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames



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