different between agitate vs jostle

English

Etymology

From Middle English, from Latin agitatus, past participle of agitare (“to put in motion”), from agere (“to move”). Compare with French agiter. See act, agent.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, US) IPA^(key): /?æ.d??.te?t/

Verb

agitate (third-person singular simple present agitates, present participle agitating, simple past and past participle agitated)

1. (transitive) To disturb or excite; to perturb or stir up (a person). [from 16th c.]

2. (transitive) To cause to move with a violent, irregular action; to shake. [from 16th c.]
   • 1830, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Paul Clifford

     It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents — except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.

3. (transitive, obsolete) To set in motion; to actuate. [16th–18th c.]
4. (transitive, now rare) To discuss or debate. [from 16th c.]
   • 1790, Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Men:

     Your speech at the time a bill for the regency was agitated now lies before me.

5. (transitive, now rare) To revolve in the mind, or view in all its aspects; to consider, to devise. [from 17th c.]

Synonyms

• (discuss actively): discuss, debate, canvass

• move, shake, excite, rouse, disturb, distract, revolve

Antonyms

• (stir up): appease, calm, quieten

Related terms

• agitation
• agitator
• agitatee
• agitable
• inagitable

Translations

Further reading

• agitate in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• agitate in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• agitate at OneLook Dictionary Search

Esperanto

Adverb

agitate

1. present adverbial passive participle of agiti

Ido

Verb

agitate

1. adverbial present passive participle of agitar

Italian

Adjective

agitate f

1. feminine plural of agitato

Anagrams

• gattaie

Latin

Verb

agit?te

1. second-person plural present active imperative of agit?

Scots

Etymology

From Middle English, from Latin agitatus. Cognate with English agitate.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??d??tet/

Verb

agitate (third-person singular present agitates, present participle agitatin, past agitatit, past participle agitate)

1. to agitate

References

• “agitate” in Eagle, Andy, editor, The Online Scots Dictionary^[1], 2016.

English

Etymology

Originally justle (“to have sex with”), formed from Middle English jousten, from the Old French joster (“to joust”), from Latin iuxt? (“next to”), from iung? (“join, connect”), equivalent to joust +? -le.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?d??s.?l/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?d??.s?l/
• Rhymes: -?s?l

Verb

jostle (third-person singular simple present jostles, present participle jostling, simple past and past participle jostled)

1. (transitive, intransitive) To bump into or brush against while in motion; to push aside.
   • 1792, Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, London: J. Johnson, Part 1, Chapter 13, Section 3, pp. 434-435,^[1]

     Besides, various are the paths to power and fame which by accident or choice men pursue, and though they jostle against each other, for men of the same profession are seldom friends, yet there is a much greater number of their fellow-creatures with whom they never clash. But women are very differently situated with respect to each other—for they are all rivals.

   • 1832, Isaac Taylor, Saturday Evening, Chapter 12, p. 214,^[2]

     It is not that there are several systems of movement, physical, intellectual, and moral, which are perpetually jostling each other, or which clash whenever they come in contact, and which move on by the one vanquishing the other. But, on the contrary, each of these economies takes its uninterrupted course, as if there were no other moving within the same space […]

   • 1849, Thomas Babington Macaulay, The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, London: Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, Volume 1, Chapter 3, pp. 370-371,^[3]

     […] when the lord of a Lincolnshire or Shropshire manor appeared in Fleet Street, he was as easily distinguished from the resident population as a Turk or a Lascar. […] Bullies jostled him into the kennel. Hackney coachmen splashed him from head to foot. […]
2. (intransitive) To move through by pushing and shoving.
   • 1920, F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise, Book One, Chapter 3,^[4]

     Axia and Amory, acquaintances of an hour, jostled behind a waiter to a table at a point of vantage; there they took seats and watched.

3. (transitive) To be close to or in physical contact with.
   • 1859, Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species, London: John Murray, Chapter 4, p. 114,^[5]

     […] the advantages of diversification of structure, with the accompanying differences of habit and constitution, determine that the inhabitants, which thus jostle each other most closely, shall, as a general rule, belong to what we call different genera and orders.

4. (intransitive) To contend or vie in order to acquire something.
   • 1819, Walter Scott, The Bride of Lammermoor, in Tales of My Landlord, Edinburgh: Archibald Constable, Third Series, Volume 1, Chapter 1, p. 22,^[6]

     Dick, who, in serious earnest, was supposed to have considerable natural talents for his profession, and whose vain and sanguine disposition never permitted him to doubt for a moment of ultimate success, threw himself headlong into the crowd which jostled and struggled for notice and preferment.

   • 1917, Rudyard Kipling, “The Children,” poem accompanying the story “The Honours of War” in A Diversity of Creatures, London: Macmillan, pp. 129-130,^[7]

     […] Our statecraft, our learning

     Delivered them bound to the Pit and alive to the burning

     Whither they mirthfully hastened as jostling for honour.

5. (dated, slang) To pick or attempt to pick pockets.

Translations

See also

• justle
• joust

Noun

jostle (plural jostles)

1. The act of jostling someone or something; push, shove.
   • 1722, Daniel Defoe, Moll Flanders, London: J. Cooke, 1765, p. 241,^[8]

     I had full hold of her Watch, but giving a great Jostle, as if somebody had thrust me against her, and in the Juncture giving the Watch a fair pull, I found it would not come, so I let it go that Moment, and cried out as if I had been killed, that somebody had trod upon my Foot […]

2. The action of a jostling crowd.
   • 1865, Harriet Beecher Stowe (under the pseudonym Christopher Crowfield), The Chimney-Corner, Boston: Ticknor & Field, 1868, Chapter 12, p. 291,^[9]

     For years to come, the average of lone women will be largely increased; and the demand, always great, for some means by which they many provide for themselves, in the rude jostle of the world, will become more urgent and imperative.

Translations