INCITE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does incite mean? 

• INCITE (verb)
  The verb INCITE has 3 senses:

1. give an incentive for action

2. provoke or stir up

3. urge on; cause to act

  Familiarity information: INCITE used as a verb is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• INCITE (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they incite    ... he / she / it incites   
Past simple: incited   
Past participle: incited   
-ing form: inciting   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Give an incentive for action

Classified under:

Verbs of sewing, baking, painting, performing

Synonyms:

actuate; incite; motivate; move; prompt; propel

Context example:

This moved me to sacrifice my career

Hypernyms (to "incite" is one way to...):

cause; do; make (give rise to; cause to happen or occur, not always intentionally)

Verb group:

affect; impress; move; strike (have an emotional or cognitive impact upon)

move (arouse sympathy or compassion in)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s somebody
Something ----s somebody
Something ----s something
Somebody ----s somebody to INFINITIVE

Sentence example:

They incite him to write the letter

Derivation:

incitation (something that incites or provokes; a means of arousing or stirring to action)

incitement (needed encouragement)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Provoke or stir up

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

Synonyms:

incite; instigate; set off; stir up

Context example:

set off great unrest among the people

Hypernyms (to "incite" is one way to...):

provoke; stimulate (provide the needed stimulus for)

Cause:

act; move (perform an action, or work out or perform (an action))

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "incite"):

raise (activate or stir up)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s somebody
Somebody ----s somebody to INFINITIVE

Derivation:

incitation (an act of urging on or spurring on or rousing to action or instigating)

incitation (something that incites or provokes; a means of arousing or stirring to action)

incitement (an act of urging on or spurring on or rousing to action or instigating)

inciter (someone who deliberately foments trouble)

incitive (arousing to action or rebellion)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Urge on; cause to act

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Synonyms:

egg on; incite; prod

Context example:

The other children egged the boy on, but he did not want to throw the stone through the window

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "incite"):

goose (prod into action)

halloo (urge on with shouts)

goad (urge with or as if with a goad)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s somebody

Derivation:

incitation (an act of urging on or spurring on or rousing to action or instigating)

incitation; incitement (something that incites or provokes; a means of arousing or stirring to action)

inciter (someone who deliberately foments trouble)

 Context examples 

Tormented, incited to hate, he was kept a prisoner so that there was no way of satisfying that hate except at the times his master saw fit to put another dog against him.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

Although the precise mechanism of action is unknown, upon intravesical administration, attenuated, live BCG bacteria in the solution come into direct contact with the bladder wall, inciting an antitumor granulomatous inflammatory reaction.

(BCG solution, NCI Thesaurus)

Her music was a club that she swung brutally upon his head; and though it stunned him and crushed him down, it incited him.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

We have of late come to understand that sunrise and sunset are to her times of peculiar freedom; when her old self can be manifest without any controlling force subduing or restraining her, or inciting her to action.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

As yet I looked upon crime as a distant evil, benevolence and generosity were ever present before me, inciting within me a desire to become an actor in the busy scene where so many admirable qualities were called forth and displayed.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

They put in the advertisement, one rogue has the temporary office, the other rogue incites the man to apply for it, and together they manage to secure his absence every morning in the week.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

For although few men will avow their desires of being immortal, upon such hard conditions, yet in the two kingdoms before mentioned, of Balnibarbi and Japan, he observed that every man desired to put off death some time longer, let it approach ever so late: and he rarely heard of any man who died willingly, except he were incited by the extremity of grief or torture.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

A third of God’s angels he had led with him, and straightway he incited man to rebel against God, and gained for himself and hell the major portion of all the generations of man.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

She carried herself in the most stately fashion, so that as I looked at her majestic entrance, and at the pose which she struck as she glanced at my father, I was reminded of the Queen of the Peruvians as, in the person of Miss Polly Hinton, she incited Boy Jim and myself to insurrection.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

She even went farther, in a timid way inciting him, but doing it so delicately that he never suspected, and doing it half- consciously, so that she scarcely suspected herself.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)