different between agitate vs twitch

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 1

From Middle English twicchen, from Old English *twi??an, from Proto-West Germanic *twikkijan (“to nail, pin, fasten, clasp, pinch”). Cognate with English tweak, Low German twikken, German Low German twicken (“to pinch, pinch off”), zweck?n and gizwickan (> German zwicken (“to pinch”)).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /tw?t??/, [t?w??t??]
• Rhymes: -?t?

Noun

twitch (countable and uncountable, plural twitches)

1. A brief, small (sometimes involuntary) movement out of place and then back again; a spasm.

2. (informal) Action of spotting or seeking out a bird, especially a rare one.
3. (farriery) A stick with a hole in one end through which passes a loop, which can be drawn tightly over the upper lip or an ear of a horse and twisted to keep the animal quiet during minor surgery.

   Synonym: barnacle

   • 1861, John Henry Walsh, The Horse in the Stable and in the Field

     THE TWITCH is a short stick of strong ash, about the size of a mopstick, with a hole pierced near the end, through which is passed a piece of strong but small cord, and tied in a loop large enough to admit the open hand freely.

4. (physiology) A brief, contractile response of a skeletal muscle elicited by a single maximal volley of impulses in the neurons supplying it.
5. (mining) The sudden narrowing almost to nothing of a vein of ore.
6. (birdwatching) A trip taken in order to observe a rare bird.

Derived terms

• nervous twitch
• twitch game

Translations

References

• Twitch in The Free Dictionary (Medicine)

Verb

twitch (third-person singular simple present twitches, present participle twitching, simple past and past participle twitched)

1. (intransitive) To perform a twitch; spasm.

2. (transitive) To cause to twitch; spasm.
   • 1922, Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit

     Their feet padded softly on the ground, and they crept quite close to him, twitching their noses...

3. (transitive) To jerk sharply and briefly.

   • Thrice they twitched the diamond in her ear.

4. (obsolete) To exert oneself. [15th-17th c.]
5. (transitive) To spot or seek out a bird, especially a rare one.
   • 1995, Quarterly Review of Biology vol. 70 p. 348:

     "The Birdwatchers Handbook ... will be a clear asset to those who 'twitch' in Europe."

   • 2003, Mark Cocker, Birders: Tales of a Tribe [1], ?ISBN, page 52:

     "But the key revelation from twitching that wonderful Iceland Gull on 10 March 1974 wasn't its eroticism. It was the sheer innocence of it."

   • 2005, Sean Dooley, The Big Twitch: One Man, One Continent, a Race Against Time [2], ?ISBN, page 119:

     "I hadn't seen John since I went to Adelaide to (unsuccessfully) twitch the '87 Northern Shoveler, when I was a skinny, eighteen- year-old kid. "

Translations

Usage notes

When used of birdwatchers by ignorant outsiders, this term frequently carries a negative connotation.

Derived terms

• atwitch

Etymology 2

alternate of quitch

Noun

twitch (uncountable)

1. couch grass (Elymus repens; a species of grass, often considered as a weed)

Translations