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Agitate   /ˈædʒətˌeɪt/   Listen
Agitate

verb
(past & past part. agitated; pres. part. agitating)
1.
Try to stir up public opinion.  Synonyms: foment, stir up.
2.
Cause to be agitated, excited, or roused.  Synonyms: charge, charge up, commove, excite, rouse, turn on.
3.
Exert oneself continuously, vigorously, or obtrusively to gain an end or engage in a crusade for a certain cause or person; be an advocate for.  Synonyms: campaign, crusade, fight, press, push.  "She is crusading for women's rights" , "The Dean is pushing for his favorite candidate"
4.
Move very slightly.  Synonyms: budge, shift, stir.
5.
Move or cause to move back and forth.  Synonym: shake.  "My hands were shaking"
6.
Change the arrangement or position of.  Synonyms: commove, disturb, raise up, shake up, stir up, vex.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Agitate" Quotes from Famous Books



... tell us p. 80, that "it is too true that the mighty passions, which agitate the public intercourse of the world, are almost beyond the direct reach of moral means," i. e. of the ...
— Five Pebbles from the Brook • George Bethune English

... Dialogues. But neither in them, nor in the Apology, nor in the Memorabilia of Xenophon, does Socrates express any doubt of the fundamental truths of morality. He evidently regards this 'among the multitude of questions' which agitate human life 'as the principle which alone remains unshaken.' He does not insist here, any more than in the Phaedo, on the literal truth of the myth, but only on the soundness of the doctrine which is contained in it, that doing wrong is worse than suffering, and that a man should be ...
— Gorgias • Plato

... unconcerned spectators were moved even to tears on witnessing this scene, what were the feelings of the parents who were eye-witnesses of all that passed! Love, tenderness, and sorrow, every emotion that could agitate them, struggled for utterance within their breasts. Haim and Simla and the young Ysajar, fell on their knees, and sent up to Heaven their hearts' supplications; they followed with their eyes the departing cavalcade, their gaze riveted like those of a spectre; no need was there now to enjoin ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various

... of intellect. The inferior animals are, to a certain extent, endowed with the same faculties as ourselves. They are even susceptible of the same moral qualities. Hatred, love, fear, hope, joy, distress, courage, timidity, jealousy, and many varied passions influence and agitate them, as they do the human being. The dog is an illustration of this—-the most susceptible to every impression—approaching the nearest to man in his instincts, and in many actions that surprise the philosopher, who ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt

... laid below in the middle of the ship, is changed, for the purposes of the back bone. The cordage becomes soft hair, the yards {become} arms. Their colour is azure, as it was before. As Naiads of the ocean, with their virgin sports they agitate those waves, which before they dreaded; and, born on the rugged mountains, they inhabit the flowing sea; their origin influences them not. And yet, not forgetting how many dangers they endured on the boisterous ocean, often do they give a helping hand ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso

... modesty and to the language he writes, which is little read beyond the borders of Hellenism—he is incontestably the greatest. The breadth of his views on the world and on humanity, on the history and soul of his race, in short, on all problems that agitate modern thought, places him in the first rank among those who have had the gift to clothe the philosophic idea in the sumptuous mantle of poetry. On the other hand, the vigor and richness of his imagination, the penetrating warmth of his feeling, the exquisite perfection of his art, and his gifted ...
— Life Immovable - First Part • Kostes Palamas

... the South will be 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 of the ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various

... going to kill him, and the sooner he takes up his ordinary life again the better it will be for him. Come, now, everything will be all right." He smiled at her anxious face reassuringly. "Leave it to me. I will see that nothing is done to agitate Phil if I do not think him strong enough to bear it. Now, let us ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees

... quantum, is not the same for all resonators; it is in inverse ratio to the wave-length, so that resonators of short period can take in energy only in large pieces, while those of long period can absorb or give it out by small bits. What is the result? Great effort is necessary to agitate a short-period resonator, since this requires at least a quantity of energy equal to its quantum, which is great. The chances are, then, that these resonators will keep quiet, especially if the temperature is low, and it is for this reason that ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick

... England's perplexity in the cotton business, especially with a nation that might any day become an ally! It would be wiser to let a little more cotton leak into Germany through Switzerland than to agitate the question of contraband at ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick

... Point continued to agitate the village of Templeton next day, and for many days, it was little remembered in the Wigwam. Confident of his right, Mr. Effingham, though naturally indignant at the abuse of his long liberality, through which alone the public had been permitted to frequent the place, and this ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper

... serious character. We loved each other; she was just seventeen, and I twenty-one, when I ventured to tell her how deeply, fervently, and purely I loved her. The formal announcement did not seem to create surprise, or agitate her ...
— Lizzy Glenn - or, The Trials of a Seamstress • T. S. Arthur

... carriage in the dark, she sank back like one exhausted, and only held my hand and Madame Darpent's to her lips by turns. I wanted to ask whether she felt ill or hurt in any way, but after she had gently answered, 'Oh, no, only so thankful, so worn out,' Madame Darpent advised me not to agitate her by talking to her, but to let her rest. Only the kind, motherly woman wanted to know how long it was since she had eaten, and seeing the light of a little CABARET on the road, she stopped the carriage and sent her son to fetch some bread ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... to the present day, still it must not be supposed that the power and prosperity of his kingdom and of the Saxon dynasty continued wholly uninterrupted after his death. Contentions and struggles between the two great races of Saxons and Danes continued for some centuries to agitate the island. The particular details of these contentions have in these days, in a great measure, lost their interest for all but professed historical scholars. It is only the history of great leading events and the lives of really extraordinary men, in the annals of early ages, which ...
— King Alfred of England - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... Mr. Brand. She perceived that he meant something; but for a long time past Mr. Brand had constantly meant something, and she had almost got used to it. She felt, however, that what he meant had now a renewed power to disturb her, to perplex and agitate her. He walked beside her in silence for a moment, and then he added, "I have had no trouble in seeing that you are beginning to avoid me. But perhaps," he went on, "one need n't have had very good ...
— The Europeans • Henry James

... and September began. Meanwhile the prince, who was the soul of the enterprise, was confined to his sick-bed by a violent attack of fever, and the pangs of famine began to be cruelly felt within the beleaguered town. A portion of the citizens were half-hearted in the struggle, and began to agitate for surrender and even sent out emissaries to try to make terms with the Spanish commander. But there were within Leyden leaders of iron resolution, the heroic Burgomaster Pieter Adriaanzoon van der Werf; the commandant of the garrison, Jan van der Does; Dirk van Bronkhorst, ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson

... it is as an application of this truth that we are about to consider the series, which is an exposition of the passions that agitate man, an initiation into imitative language. It is a poem, and at the same time it lays down rules through whose aid the self-possessed artist can regain the gesture which arises from sudden perturbation ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various

... is a much stronger document. It deals with the distribution of the National Income, giving the workers' share as 300 out of 1300 millions sterling, and demands that the workers should "educate, agitate, organise" in order to get their own. Evidently it attracted some attention, since we find that the second edition of a pamphlet "Reply" by Samuel Smith, M.P., then a person of substantial importance, ...
— The History of the Fabian Society • Edward R. Pease

... except those few who have been inoculated with the fallacious doctrine of "the class war" and who have accepted the philosophy that progress consists in fomenting discord in industry ("When you get your $12 a day, don't stop at that. Agitate for $14. When you get your eight hours a day, don't be a fool and grow contented; agitate for six hours. Start something! Always start something!"), have the plain sense which enables them to recognize that with ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford

... the grass, a sunbeam falling through the leaves, or the reflection of the sky in a splash of water in a rut was enough to agitate and affect her, for their sight brought back a kind of echo of the emotions she had felt when, as a young girl, she had wandered dreamily through the fields; and though now there was nothing to which she could look ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893

... success. It is of importance that they should succeed in their first trials, otherwise they will be discouraged from repeating their attempts, and they will distrust their own memory in future. The fear of not remembering, will occupy, and agitate, and weaken their minds; they should, therefore, be animated by hope. If they fail, at all events let them not be reproached; the mortification they naturally feel, is sufficient: nor should they be left to dwell upon their disappointment; they ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth

... for he was an exceedingly mild and peaceable man, and the slightest suggestion of trouble was enough to agitate him. ...
— Frank Merriwell's Nobility - The Tragedy of the Ocean Tramp • Burt L. Standish (AKA Gilbert Patten)

... Lord Palmerston's first Government to create peers for life. The expedient was almost perfect. The difficulty of reforming an old institution like the House of Lords is necessarily great; its possibility rests on continuous caste and ancient deference. And if you begin to agitate about it, to bawl at meetings about it, that deference is gone, its particular charm lost, its reserved sanctity gone. But, by an odd fatality, there was in the recesses of the Constitution an old prerogative which would have rendered agitation needless—which would ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot

... immediate abolition, without committing crimes or sins of some sort or other." He cannot be neutral. Therefore, gentle reader, in the "irrepressible conflict" that is now agitating the country, and will continue to agitate it till slavery is abolished, which side have you chosen, or do you intend to choose? Will you take the "higher law," which is in harmony with God's providence and his word, or act in favor of the "lower law," which opposes both? If slavery is right, sustain, defend ...
— An Account of Some of the Principal Slave Insurrections, • Joshua Coffin

... would stick at nothing, even casting a vote. There were those who said casting a vote was unwomanly, and you couldn't possibly leave the baby long enough to do it. Others among the antis were reconciled to its coming, if it came slowly enough not to agitate us. "Of course," said one of these, a Melvin who managed her ample fortune with the acumen of a financier, "it will come sometime. But we are none of us ready. We must delay it as long as we can." So she and the like-minded drove into the country round and talked about ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown

... However, to suggest coeducation in those days was enough to jeopardize the founding of a college, and Horace Greeley stood out against them, his babylike face, fringed with throat whiskers, getting redder by the moment as he begged them not to agitate ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz

... excite generous. It is not necessary 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, as you advance in life, ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... past ages is lost for the living—since the errors of progenitors have not instructed their descendants, the ancient examples are about to reappear; the earth will see renewed the tremendous scenes it has forgotten. New revolutions will agitate nations and empires; powerful thrones will again be overturned, and terrible catastrophes will again teach mankind that the laws of nature and the precepts of wisdom and truth cannot be infringed ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney

... 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

... 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 it has ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil

... be, life will show him her laws sooner or later, trouble will come for him—disease, poverty, losses, and no one will see or hear, just as now he neither sees nor hears others. But there is no man with a hammer; the happy man lives at his ease, and trivial daily cares faintly agitate him like the wind in the aspen-tree—and all ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... happiness, By way of soothing remedy devised, Nature, in this unhappy life of ours, Had manifold necessities prepared, Not without thought or labor satisfied; So that the days, though ever sad, less dull Might seem unto the human family; And this desire, bewildered and confused, Might have less power to agitate the heart. So, too, the various families of brutes, Who have, no less than we, and vainly, too, Desire for happiness; but they, intent On that which is essential to their life, Consume their days more pleasantly, by far, Nor chide, with us, the dulness of the hours. ...
— The Poems of Giacomo Leopardi • Giacomo Leopardi

... consciously applied by them by corresponding changes in their social organization,—and that is Socialism. What we need is not other people, but wiser and more intelligent people than most of them are to-day. It is with the end in view of making people wiser and more intelligent that we agitate, Herr Richter, and that we publish works like ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel

... surprising that timorous apprehensions should agitate these poor people on the appearance of a strange vessel. Their western neighbours, the inhabitants of the island of Ralick, and of the southern islands of the groups Mediuro and Arno, which are much more thickly peopled, sometimes ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue

... interrupted, with deep emotion, "cease, I pray you, to agitate yourself with causeless fears. Why should I hesitate to avow a feeling that I fear I have already permitted to appear all too plainly. If you are quite sure that you really wish it, I will be your wife; and never was there a truer ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood

... by the zealots of Mosaism, did not cease, in fact, to agitate Jerusalem during all this time.[1] The death of the seditious was certain; but death, when the integrity of the Law was in question, was sought with avidity. To overturn the Roman eagle, to destroy the works of art raised by the Herods, in which the Mosaic regulations ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan

... addition it would remove one of the most serious obstacles to the freedom and advancement of American womanhood. Every woman interested in the welfare of women in general should make it her business to agitate for such a change in the ...
— Woman and the New Race • Margaret Sanger

... delicate firmness of her hand. Was this—could this possession really be his? In his mother's mysterious secret there lay an element of terror. He could not guess why the revelation of his fortunate love should agitate her so fearfully, unless—and the suspicion gave him a shock—her history were in some way involved ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor

... speak of Redistribution, why agitate for Woman's Suffrage, if trifles like these are to obstruct a ...
— Much Darker Days • Andrew Lang (AKA A. Huge Longway)

... Mind in her vacant Moments, and prevents any Chasms of Thought by Ideas of what is past, we have other Faculties that agitate and employ her upon what is to come. These are the Passions of ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... Providence. Since, then, the Devil does exist, and does such marvellous things as are attributed to him, we are compelled to conclude that the Divinity has found it good that he should exist and agitate, as he does, all his works by a perpetual interruption and ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach

... childlike in this that it almost overcame the woman's steadily guarded calm. She had been warned to be careful that there should be no excitement to agitate a mind which was slowly groping its way out of ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell

... spirits. This is a season, which of all others is most propitious to the attempts of an artful lover; and justifies the metaphorical maxim of fishing in troubled waters. There is an affinity and short transition betwixt all the violent passions that agitate the human mind. They are all false perspectives, which, though they magnify, yet perplex and render indistinct every object which they represent. And flattery is never so successfully administered, as to those who know they stand ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett

... never occurred to you that she may have broken it off herself?—that besides this queer adventure with those drunken fellows there was something else to agitate her? Be just, Margaret. She came to us utterly inexperienced, even ignorant. She hasn't much mind, I'll admit, but she is innocent of wrong intent. Is it not possible that driving home he may have spoken to her in a way she could not mistake, ...
— Under Fire • Charles King

... instantly 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 rather ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney

... very gestures are dawdling and slouching, the opposite of smart. They shirk work when they can do so, and scamp what they undertake. A prosperous community is remarkable for the variety of the solid interests in which some or other of its members are eagerly engaged, but the questions that agitate a decadent community are for the most part of a ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various

... Secretary Buchanan, by inaugurating several new lines, and establishing a permanent and recognized basis of action. But in all this he was thwarted by the machinations of narrow-minded men, who deemed it a higher effort to agitate the country and endeavor to separate the North and the South, than establish and secure those mighty aids to industry which should give development, wealth, strength, and security to the whole American Union, and check the ...
— Ocean Steam Navigation and the Ocean Post • Thomas Rainey

... and in such a manner as to open my whole soul to her, awaken her affections, call forth her admiration, agitate her with pity and ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... 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 concocted ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville

... majority. This party was unanimously hostile to the treaty with Great Britain, and it was expected that their answer to the speech of the President would indicate their sentiments on a subject which continued to agitate the whole American people. The answer reported by the committee contained a declaration that the confidence of his fellow-citizens in the chief magistrate ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing

... I saw him I should be sure. I don't suppose that my appearance would agitate him," said Brian, little suspecting the deep interest and importance which would attach to ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... the present crude hour, no wise men or women will rudely or prematurely agitate a theme involving the All ...
— Unity of Good • Mary Baker Eddy

... that "any investigation that the Government might institute with the view of ascertaining whether gold did in reality exist to any extent or value in that part of the colony where it was supposed from its geological formation that metal would be found, would only tend to agitate ...
— A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. • Mrs. Charles (Ellen) Clacey

... Casas in Hispaniola infused new courage into the Dominicans, who had been discouraged in recent years by the difficulty and hopelessness of contending against public opinion on the subject of the Indians and had consequently ceased to preach and agitate in their favour: some members of the community had even been affected by the prevalent opinion that the Indians were really a race of a different order, servile by nature, and destined by Providence to a life of subjection to their superiors. Learned arguments were ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt

... agitate the poor woman, whom he now regarded as a lunatic, Mr Sudberry turned to go, but a wonderful change in the expression of her face arrested him. Her eye had fallen on the round visage of Jacky, and a beaming smile ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne

... their attention to Imperial edicts, of melancholy import, by which rebellions were announced, dooms of treason discharged, and other tidings of a great and affecting import intimated to the people of Constantinople. When the trumpet had in its turn ceased, with its thrilling and doleful notes, to agitate the immense assembly, the voice of the ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... him that he was ordered to continue struggling till he vanquished; this he had always tried. Work and seek out! And yet his mind wavered and his resolve was unsettled. It was the ever dulcet voice of that Circe which sufficed to agitate and obscure his soul in spite of his having believed it was forever detached from her. But these umbrageous and odoriferous hills, knew how deeply he loved her, for he had spoken of his thraldom to them when he might not speak to her under pain of shame ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas

... to-day will agitate not only for the highest possible efficiency in the Navy and Army; but, with no less resolve and sincerety, for the best possible conditions obtainable for all women-workers, that the Empire may not later sink suddenly to decay, in spite of her defences, through the ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page

... are often inconsistent: they deliberately 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 and self-sacrificing, to consider the good of the whole before the good of the ego. ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams

... Lakshman is an able but deluded man. His dreams of social reform are obsolete. We of the new school adhere patriotically to social and religious ordinances of the Mother. All we agitate for is political independence." He unfurled the polysyllables, like a flag; sublimely unaware of having stated a contradiction in terms. "But your Sir Lakshman ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver

... Representative in Albany. It was received by the Legislature as something absurdly ridiculous, and laid upon the table. We introduced the question into the Debating Clubs, that were in those days such popular institutions in the rural districts, and in every way sought to agitate the subject. I found a great many men, especially those of the better class, disposed to accord equal rights to our sex. And, now, as the highest tribute that I can pay to the memory of a husband, I may say that during our companionship of ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... Ladon, and, unable to cross it, implored the aid of her sister nymphs; and when Pan thought to grasp the object of his pursuit, he found his arms filled with reeds. At that moment the wind began to agitate the reeds and produced a low musical sound. The god took the hint, cut seven of the twigs, and formed from them his syrinx, or pastoral pipe." See ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin

... Mortimer, evidently endeavouring to suppress emotions which appeared to agitate his whole frame, and absorb every mental faculty, "we are unable to account for her absence, and strongly suspect she is in company with your friend Sparkle—can you give us any information relative to either ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... as his betrothed, called the Chief Clerk "Papenka," and occasionally kissed "Papenka's" hand. In fact, every one at the office supposed that, at the end of February (i.e. before the beginning of Lent) there would take place a wedding. Nay, the surly father even began to agitate with the authorities on Chichikov's behalf, and so enabled our hero, on a vacancy occurring, to attain the stool of a Chief Clerk. Apparently this marked the consummation of Chichikov's relations with his host, for he hastened ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... 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 ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff

... in his heart, that when the truth was spoken for the purpose of deceiving, it was little better than a lie in disguise. But it was no time to agitate such questions of conscience. ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott

... I am that I neither love nor fear the good man yet, whatever I may do some future day. I would not be understood that I do not respect and esteem him; for I do both. But these are calm passions, which soothe rather than agitate the mind. It was not the consciousness of any impropriety of conduct; for I was far from feeling any. The entertainment for which I was prepared was such as virtue would not disapprove, and my gallant was a man of fortune, fashion, and, for aught I knew, ...
— The Coquette - The History of Eliza Wharton • Hannah Webster Foster

... cannot, I cannot," said Moses; but as he looked at the bright, pale face, and felt how the tempest of his feelings shook the frail form, he checked himself. "I do wrong to agitate you so, Mara. I ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... 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 ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume

... slumbering charms, that 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' ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward

... "I'd agitate for a 'Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Vegetables' if it were. I believe I'm going to adore Miss Chadwick! She looks so sporty. She wrinkles up her nose when she laughs, just like ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil

... into groups representative of one side or the other of this great quarrel that already was beginning to agitate the whole of France. Their rallying cries were ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini

... interests of public order. A mighty liberty to be allowed to speak acceptable words to the rabble! The least that the State can do is to protect people who have something to say that may cause a riot. What will not cause a riot is probably not worth saying. At present, to agitate for an increase of liberty is the best that any ordinary person can do for the advancement ...
— Art • Clive Bell

... melody! Here we dwell in a variable atmosphere—the prospect is at one time darkened by the gloom of disgrace, and at another the eye is dazzled by the gleamings of glory: but thou hast now ascended above this inconstant region; no storms agitate, no clouds obscure the air, and the lightnings play, and the thunders roll ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce

... his mercy, or of that Providence in whose hands are all the ends of the earth. And we, who are endowed with speech in order to interpret the dumb eloquence of the works of God—we cannot be mute amid the longings, the fears, and the hopes which agitate the minds of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne

... of the inveterate hostility of the persecuted papists against the queen, continued to agitate the minds of a people who loved and honored her; and who anticipated with well founded horror the succession of another Mary, which seemed inevitable in the event of her death. A book was written by a Romish priest, exhorting ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... any idea so overwhelmingly new and personal that it would force a way of utterance where none existed? The Christian creed with its tale of Mary must be of all creeds most antipathetic to his natural instincts, he nevertheless accepts it.... If you agitate a pool from different sides you must stir up mud, and this is what occurs in Norton's brain; it is agitated equally from different sides, and ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore

... about what you have done. You are certainly the most startling Vestal since Gegania, but you have really done nothing actually wrong. So do not agitate yourself about what cannot be altered. The question which concerns me is, what will you ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White

... millions of men and women at home are heroically bearing their losses and are sending up urgent prayers to the Almighty for the speedy termination of the war, certain leaders of the people and the people's representatives agitate against the German Alliance, which has so splendidly stood the test, pass resolutions which no longer have the slightest connection with the state idea, find no word of blame for the Czech troops which criminally fight against their own ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek

... have you agitators? With Pharisaical pretension it is sometimes said it is a moral obligation to agitate, and I suppose they are going through a sort of vicarious repentance for other men's sins. With all due allowance for their zeal, we ask, how do they decide that it is a sin? By what standard do they measure it? Not the Constitution; the Constitution ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis

... work aims at being a political study. I would attempt to exemplify the influence of individual humors and passions—some of them among the highest, and others certainly the basest that agitate humanity—upon the march of great events, upon general historical results at certain epochs, and upon the destiny of ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... marked the majestic form and features of Darab, and said in her heart: "The youth who bears this dignified and royal aspect, appears to be a Kaianian by birth;" and as she spoke, the instinctive feeling of a mother seemed to agitate her bosom. ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous

... being desirous thus to inspire them with tranquillity and delightsomeness of heart. The tranquillity and delightsomeness with which they inspired me, sensibly filled my breast and heart: at the same time the longings and anxieties about the future, which cause disquiet and wretchedness, and agitate the mind with various passions, were removed. From this it could be made apparent to me what was the character of the life of the inhabitants of the earth Jupiter; for the inborn disposition of the inhabitants is known from the ...
— Earths In Our Solar System Which Are Called Planets, and Earths In The Starry Heaven Their Inhabitants, And The Spirits And Angels There • Emanuel Swedenborg

... 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 stairs of ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne

... the Convent at the hour appointed. He was at once admitted, with a caution from Mere Esther to be calm and not agitate the dying girl. The moment he entered the great parlor, Amelie sprang from her seat with a sudden cry of recognition, extending her poor thin hands through the bars towards him. Pierre seized them, kissing them passionately, but broke down utterly at the sight of her wasted ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... and prize goose,—The feelings which now agitate my sensorium on this Michaelmasian occasion stimulate the vibratetiuncles of the heartiean hypothesis, so as to paralyse the oracular and articulative apparatus of my loquacious confirmation, overwhelming my soul-fraught ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... sufficient, however, to guide the stylus over the same course again, and agitate the diaphragm into reproducing waves of sound, similar to ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 28, May 20, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... Cato commended Pompeius and exhorted him to turn his attention to the establishment of order, and Pompeius then out of shame did turn his attention to it, and Domitius[329] and Messala were made consuls; but afterwards there was again anarchy, and a greater number of persons now began to agitate the question of a dictator more boldly, and Cato and his partisans fearing that they should be forced to yield, determined to let Pompeius have a certain legalized authority for the purpose of diverting him from that pure tyrannical office. Bibulus, who was an enemy of Pompeius, was ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch

... will tell you. Try not to agitate yourself, try to listen to me quietly. Remember that a brave woman can always control ...
— A Girl in Ten Thousand • L. T. Meade

... to vote? We can show our credentials to the right of self-government; we get ours just where man got his; they are all Heaven-descended, God-given. It is our duty to assert and reassert this right, to agitate, discuss, and petition, until our political equality be fully recognized. Depend upon it, this is the point to attack, the stronghold of the fortress—the one woman will find the most difficult to take, the one man will most reluctantly ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... cost by a contractor at any point where water is available. Each washer unit consists of two hexagonal troughs 18 ins. in diameter and 18 ft. long. A shaft carrying blades set spirally is rotated in each trough to agitate the gravel and force it along; each trough also has a fall of 6 ins. toward its receiving end. The two troughs are inclosed in a tank or box and above and between them is a 5-in. pipe having -in. holes 3 ins. apart so arranged that the streams are directed into ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette

... now is, 'Put down the rebellion! but don't tech slavery, and don't bring in the nigger!' As if, arter dogs had been killing my sheep, you should preach to me, 'Save your sheep, neighbor, but don't agitate the dog question! You mustn't tech the dogs!' I say, if the dogs begin the trouble, they must take the consequences, even if ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge

... latch-keys," exploded Mrs. Honeychurch. "And agitate and scream, and be carried off kicking by the police. And call it a Mission—when no one wants you! And call it Duty—when it means that you can't stand your own home! And call it Work—when thousands of men are starving with the ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster

... compared with it, dwindled into nothing, and vanished like vapour before the sun.' But these were partizans. Even Pitt acknowledged 'that it surpassed all the eloquence of ancient and modern times, and possessed everything that genius or art could furnish to agitate and control the human mind.' One member confessed himself so unhinged by it, that he moved an adjournment, because he could not, in his then state of mind, give an unbiassed vote. But the highest ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton

... of the legions, and the officers both of cavalry and infantry, were invited to assist. Three or four hours of the night had not passed away without some secret cabals; and when the election of an emperor was proposed, the spirit of faction began to agitate the assembly. Victor and Arinthaeus collected the remains of the court of Constantius; the friends of Julian attached themselves to the Gallic chiefs, Dagalaiphus and Nevitta; and the most fatal consequences might be apprehended from the discord ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... many of my loyal and devoted friends perished by the sword and by proscription, or died indigent and neglected in a foreign land, I have often, sworn that no view to my personal aggrandizement should again induce me to agitate a title which has cost my followers so dear. But since so many men of worth and honour conceive the cause of England and Scotland to be linked with that of Charles Stuart, I must follow their brave example, and, laying ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott

... the moment interesting to him. We see it in conversation, where every one is eloquent upon his favorite subjects. We see it in deliberative assemblies; where it is those grand questions, which excite an intense interest, and absorb and agitate the mind, that call forth those bursts of eloquence by which men are remembered as powerful orators, and that give a voice to men who can speak on no other occasions. Cicero tells us of himself, that the instances in which he was most successful, were those ...
— Hints on Extemporaneous Preaching • Henry Ware

... coarsely; it persisted in sticking to people rather too keenly at times; would hardly give way if struggled with; and taking into account its tenacity and ill- looks—it was finally decided to rub it off, make things easy with pumice stone, and agitate for fresh paint and varnish when the ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus

... said the boy bluntly. "It will only agitate you more. Isn't it enough that I helped him to get ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn

... 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 morning that I really feared ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various

... temperature to 3 deg.. Hot water at the feet, 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 a feeble patient ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume I (of VI) • Various

... sacrifices the 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 ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson



Words linked to "Agitate" :   jactitate, provoke, slash, move, crusade, rile, promote, rattle, convulse, thrash, charge up, psych up, upset, toss, concuss, scramble, calm, fan, tremble, thresh, thresh about, sparge, trouble, fight, tremor, poke, roil, advertize, quake, beat, agitative, jiggle, fluff up, rumpus, electrify, hype up, agitator, thrash about, wiggle, succuss, palpitate, plump up, stimulate, advertise, bother, vex, displace, joggle, pother



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