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Excite

1. To call to activity in any way; to rouse to feeling; to kindle to passionate emotion; to stir up to combined or general activity; as, to excite a person, the spirits, the passions; to excite a mutiny or insurrection; to excite heat by friction.

2. (Science: physiology) to call forth or increase the vital activity of an organism, or any of its parts.

Synonym: to incite, awaken, animate, rouse or arouse, stimulate, inflame, irritate, provoke.

to excite, incite. When we excite we rouse into action feelings which were less strong; when we incite we spur on or urge forward to a specific act or end. Demosthenes excited the passions of the Athenians against philip, and thus incited the whole nation to unite in the war against him. Antony, by his speech over the body of Caesar, so excited the feelings of the populace, that Brutus and his companions were compelled to flee from Rome; many however, were incited to join their standard, not only by love of liberty, but hopes of plunder.

Origin: L. Excitare; ex out _ citare to move rapidly, to rouse: cf. OF. Esciter, exciter, f. Exciter. See Cite.