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Agitation   /ˌædʒətˈeɪʃən/   Listen
Agitation

noun
1.
A mental state of extreme emotional disturbance.
2.
A state of agitation or turbulent change or development.  Synonyms: ferment, fermentation, tempestuousness, unrest.  "Social unrest"
3.
The feeling of being agitated; not calm.
4.
Disturbance usually in protest.  Synonyms: excitement, hullabaloo, turmoil, upheaval.
5.
The act of agitating something; causing it to move around (usually vigorously).






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Agitation" Quotes from Famous Books



... painted the priest's robe yellow, in her agitation. But the agitation was not deep. There really seemed no reason why she should hesitate. He would be kind; he was well-bred and agreeable. A princess? She had a vague idea of a glorified region of ancestral castles and palaces in which dukes and royalties ...
— Frances Waldeaux • Rebecca Harding Davis

... stating his own opinion that Daniel had a legal right to freedom. The wood-sawyer started off with the note with great alacrity, and delivered it to Friend Hopper, saying in very animated tones, "Squire Todd thinks I am free!" He was in a state of great agitation between hope and fear. When he had told his story, he was sent home to get receipts for all the money he had paid his master since his arrival in Philadelphia. It was easy to prove from these that he had been a resident in Pennsylvania, with his owner's consent, a ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child

... the sea ruffled her night-caps. The tram for Nice shrieked down the incline toward the promontory, now a vast frowning shadow. At the foot of the road which winds up to the palaces the car was signaled, and two women boarded. Both were veiled and exhibited signs of recent agitation. They maintained a singular silence. At Villefranche they got out, and the car went on glowingly through the night. The women stopped before the gates of a villa and rang the porter's bell. Presently he came down the path and admitted them, grumbling. Once in the room above, the silence between ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath

... cane-fields, or else smoking my cigar, taking my coffee, rocking myself in a hammock—in short, enjoying all the delights that are the very heart-blood of a guajiro, and out of the sphere of which he can see but death, or, what is worse to him, the feverish agitation of our Northern society. Go and talk of the funds, of the landed interest, of stock-jobbing, to this Sybarite lord of the wilderness, who can live all the year round on luscious bananas and delicious cocoa-nuts which he is not even at the trouble of planting; who has ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris

... thirteen courtiers whom, even in that moment of dire extremity, he had condemned to death. From a prisoner it was learned that the Nawab had escaped on a camel with two thousand horsemen, fleeing toward Murshidabad. All day he had been in a state of terror and agitation. Deprived of his bravest officer Mir Madan, betrayed by his own relatives, the wretched youth had not waited for the critical moment. Himself carried to his capital the news of ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang

... the hirelings of England chated and decaved them. We know now what a shimmera,[2] what a fraud, was Home Rule. Our counthry has been dragged at the tail of English parties, who were purshuing their own interests. But 't is all past. No more constitutional agitation, no more paceful struggle. Lead will do what fine speeches didn't. And if the black militia, wid dere ordhers from Rome, attimpt this time to interfere, we know what answer to give dem. De West's awake, and 't isn't priests will set us ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan

... "You are a prisoner! you are watched and guarded!" said the footsteps at every moment of every hour. All these small things together produce a prodigious effect upon the minds of honest folk. David saw that the bed was execrable, but the first night in a prison is full of violent agitation, and only on the second night does the prisoner notice that his couch is hard. The jailer was graciously disposed; he naturally suggested that his prisoner should walk in the yard ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac

... one began to think over it, but incredible at first, astounded us all. For Maud—well was it that the little Louise seated in her lap hid and controlled in some measure the violent agitation ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

... Churchouse retired with his book and paper. Then came Mary Dinnett, red-eyed and in some agitation. But for a moment he did not observe her trouble. He had opened his parcel and revealed a volume bound in withered calf and bearing signs of age ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts

... gathered around Pyrrhus to rescue him from his danger. This gave the Spartans time to rally, and to bring up their forces in such numbers that the Macedonian soldiers were glad to be able to make their way back again, bearing Pyrrhus with them beyond the lines. After recovering a little from the agitation produced by this adventure, Pyrrhus found that his troops, discouraged, apparently, by the fruitlessness of their efforts, and especially by this last misfortune, were beginning to lose their spirit and ardor, and were fighting feebly and falteringly all along the line. He concluded, therefore, ...
— Pyrrhus - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... clear to the end, or the patient may have delusions, supposing himself to be surrounded by terrifying forms. There is always extreme mental agitation and despair, and the sufferer is in constant fear of his impending fate. Happily the inevitable issue is not long delayed, death usually occurring in from two to four days from the onset. The symptoms of the disease are so characteristic that there is ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles

... surprised. "Why these tears, my love?" said she. "Why this seeming agitation? I thought the letter would have ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson

... wise enough to lug a camera into the country, but none the less, by a yet subtler process, a sun-picture had been recorded somewhere on his cerebral tissues. In the flash of an instant it had been done. A wave message of light and color, a molecular agitation and integration, a certain minute though definite corrugation in a brain recess,—and there it was, a picture complete! The blazing sunlight on the beetling black; a slender gray form, radiant, starting forward to the vision from the marge where light and darkness met; a fresh ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London

... sorry to disturb you—" said the visitor, in some agitation, as Doris, summoned by Jane, entered the dust-sheeted drawing-room. "But you dropped an envelope with an address this afternoon. I picked it up with some of my papers and never discovered it till ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward

... them in possession of the facts. At first their simple minds could hardly grasp the enormity of the injustice to our employer, but once the land lay clear, they would gladly have led a forlorn hope in Don Lovell's interests. Agitation over the matter was maintained at white heat for several days, as we again angled back towards the Cimarron. Around the camp-fires at night, the chicanery of The Western Supply Company gave place to ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams

... in the rocking-chair and rocked herself in her agitation. "Arthur, I shall go staring mad if I have to mess around and try to cook. I know I shall. I feel it beginning on me, and I shall have rough hands, and my skin will get red and blotchy, just like a cook's, and there will always be a greasy smell on my clothes. I am going to cry, Arthur, ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung

... the agitation of this matter was feverish, I was cooking my dinner—that is, boiling my pitiful little ration of unsalted meal, in my fruit can, with the aid of a handful of splinters that I had been able to pick up by a half day's diligent search. Suddenly the ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy

... class in the community. It was ever thus. The old antislavery agitators were considered the most dangerous men in the republic, and I remember that a very distinguished minister once bitterly regretted the agitation on the evils of slavery, because he feared it would destroy the prospect for a revival of religion in ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks

... him. Even when he is carried away by his ardent temperament or when he revolts against the hand that guides him, when he struggles and is on the point of escaping from me, I still find his first simplicity in his agitation and his anger; his heart as pure as his body, he has no more knowledge of pretence than of vice; reproach and scorn have not made a coward of him; base fears have never taught him the art of concealment. He has all the indiscretion ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau

... he lifted her in his arms and carried her to the sofa and placed her head upon his breast. For a long while she sat in that strange luxury of grief, and she was fearful that he would send her away before her agitation could pass, and she might speak. His face wore an incredulous sneer as she spoke, though he knew it was absolute truth. She told him how wretched she had been, so wretched that even temptation respected ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend

... un peu. N'allons-nous pas trop vite avec Araminte? Dans l'agitation des mouvements[128] ou elle est, veux-tu encore lui donner l'embarras ...
— A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux • Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux

... the child between the first and second period of work is interesting; at that moment the aspect of the child is not calm and happy as at the end of the curve; indeed, he shows signs of agitation, moves about, and walks, but does not disturb the others. It may be said that he is in search of the maximum satisfaction for his interest, and is preparing for ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori

... that the Cretan people, of whom I know a good deal, do not want an alliance with Greece, and if the always over-excited ambitious Greek committees would only keep quiet and give up agitation, the Cretans would be the happiest ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha

... by the agitation of his companion, witnessed this proceeding with great and conscientious alarm. "O Tom!" said he, "what will your ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 2 • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... floods gradually subsided, some of the monuments of the previous age began to show themselves above the surface of the falling waters. They had lost amid the stormy agitation of the deluge the shining splendour of their first days; still men found something to attract them after the revolution, as their grandfathers had done before it, in the pages of the Spirit of Laws, of the New Heloisa, and ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley

... seemed to his common sense to imply the most grotesque oblivion of her success in the Salon, of Taranne's kindness—the most grotesque sensitiveness to a few casual lines of print. But it wrung his heart to see her agitation, her pale face, the handkerchief she was twisting to shreds in her restless hands. He came to plead with her—his passion lending him eloquence. Let her but trust herself and her gift. She had the praise of those she ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... shared thus," said the Hermit, looking at both boys with some agitation. "You are a king's son. But we are of the woods, my Prince. I at least have other work to do. As John says, there is the Animal Kingdom—what ...
— John of the Woods • Abbie Farwell Brown

... than ours, but of a different kind. The diversity in our temper was never the parent of discord, and was scarcely a topic of regret. The scene was variegated, but not tarnished or disordered by it. It hindered the element in which we moved from stagnating. Some agitation and concussion is requisite to the due exercise of human understanding. In his studies, he pursued an austerer and more arduous path. He was much conversant with the history of religious opinions, and took pains to ascertain their validity. He deemed it indispensable ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown

... to cover him with kisses, hiding her agitation and her remorse under her passionate embraces; but from that moment the wretched woman knew remorse, knew it for the rest of her life; and could never think of her child without feeling a stab ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... Great agitation yesterday at the clubs, and excessive interest and curiosity about coming events, on which hang the existence of the Government. The Tories are talking of a vote of want of confidence, and wish to follow up their successes by this decisive blow. ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... the public agitation had died away. The time was propitious. Congress rushed through a bill carefully worded for the purpose. The lands were ordered sold in unlimited areas for cash. No pretense was made of restricting the sale to a certain acreage so that all any individual could buy was enough for ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers

... after removal of the latter from the fire, and the mixture, while making, is constantly stirred. It is kept stirred or rubbed in a mortar until cold. Sometimes it is poured into water and kept in constant agitation until cold. It is thus obtained in a granular condition, and is pounded in a mortar until reduced to powder. It must be dried and kept in tightly stopped bottles and is applied to the cushions after they have been greased. It is to be noticed that it is said ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone

... appeared his brilliant 'Sophismes economiques', which in their kind have never been equaled; and his reputation rapidly expanded. He enthusiastically espoused the cause of Free Trade, and issued a work entitled 'Cobden et la Ligue, ou l'Agitation anglaise pour la liberte des echanges' (Cobden and the League, or the English Agitation for Liberty of Exchange), which attracted great attention, and won for its author the title of corresponding member of the Institute. A movement for organization in favor of tariff ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner

... only contemplated navigation for boats up to 600 tons. In 1885 the Citizens' Association, of Chicago caused a report to be made for an extended plan. The name of Mr. L.E. Cooly, at that time municipal sanitary engineer, was closely associated with this report, as it is at the present time for the agitation for carrying out the works. This report recommended that "an ample channel be created from Chicago to the Illinois River, sufficient to carry away in a diluted state the sewage of a large population. That this channel may be enlarged ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 795, March 28, 1891 • Various

... was quite changed by her agitation. Sophia drew away, offended. She watched the pair from a distance for a few moments, and then, furious in disillusion, she escaped from the fever of the boulevards and walked quietly home. Madame Foucault did not return. Apparently Madame Foucault was doomed to be the ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett

... narrated, moreover, appears to prove that one object at least of the party of agitation has been achieved. To politico-economists it will appear a Pyrrhic victory. Capital is effectually scared from this part of Ireland, and those who have invested money on mortgage and found themselves at last compelled to "take the beast for the debt" are bitterly regretting ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker

... said Rattray, "but it makes my blood boil to hear such a story. Forgive me if I have spoken strongly;" and he paced his hall for a little in an agitation which made me like him better and better. "The cold-blooded villain!" he kept muttering; "the infernal, foreign, blood-thirsty rascal! Perhaps you were right; it couldn't have done any good, I know; but—I only wish he'd lived ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung

... sensations than your information of there being such ideas existing in the army as you have expressed, and which I must view with abhorrence and reprehend with severity. For the present, the communication of them will rest in my own bosom, unless some further agitation of the matter shall make a disclosure necessary. I am much at a loss to conceive what part of my conduct could have given encouragement to an address which to me seems big with the greatest mischiefs that can befall ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing

... intercession of Saints, etc., etc., the Catholics were shut out from all share in a Government which they were taxed to support. Such an obvious injustice should not have needed a powerful pleader; but it found one in Daniel O'Connell, who by constant agitation and fiery eloquence created such a public sentiment, that the Ministry, headed by the Duke of Wellington, aided by Sir Robert Peel in the House, carried through a measure in 1828 which opened Parliament to Catholics, and also gave them free access to all places of trust, ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele

... along the level surface of the water by its two ends, which were lost in the darkness. It reached the brig, passed under, stretching out on each side; and on each side the water became noisy, breaking into numerous and tiny wavelets, a mimicry of an immense agitation. Yet the vessel in the midst of this sudden and loud disturbance remained as motionless and steady as if she had been securely moored between the stone walls of a safe dock. In a few moments the line of foam and ripple running swiftly north passed at once beyond sight and earshot, leaving ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad

... and turned Egyptian bankruptcy into prosperity. Lord Kitchener was the English hero of the wars with the Mahdi, and Lord Cromer the administrator who gave the Egyptian peasant a comfort unknown since the days of the Pharaohs. With prosperity came political agitation, and Germany, as has been seen, looked upon Egypt as ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish

... by the writers alluded to above; sectional hatred is engendered, North and South; and if this incessant warfare continues, it will, at no very distant day, produce a dissolution of this Union. This result is inevitable if the present state of things continues. Has the agitation and discussion of the question of African slavery, in the free States, resulted in any good, or is it ever likely to result in any? I flatter myself that I have clearly shown, in the following pages, that hitherto its consequences have been evil and only evil, ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward

... answer to these somewhat erratic remarks, the priest joined in a discussion that had been started concerning the action taken by the Church during the present agrarian agitation. Mr. Barton, who was weary of the subject, stepped aside, and, sitting on one of the terrace benches between Cecilia and Alice, he feasted his eyes on the colour-changes that came over the sea, and in long-drawn-out and disconnected phrases explained his views on nature and art until the bell ...
— Muslin • George Moore

... on by the log, we found that the error on making that land was but a very few miles of longitude, and that error most probably was in the carrying on the log; so that there was every reason to think, that the violent agitation of the ship during that time, was the cause of that change in the watch, and which I own I was not at all surprised at, but think it highly probable, as the watch lay in a box upon soft cushions, and that box screwed down to a place securely and firmly fixed ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter

... wearied with her night walk and the agitation she had been through, that once asleep she slept long after the early breakfast hour of the family. She was surprised on awaking to hear the slow old clock downstairs striking eight. She hastily jumped up and looked ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... up, and save her!" were the only words he had power to gasp, panting painfully for the breath of which speed had deprived him. His hair and dress were heavy with the damp occasioned by the fog, and his whole appearance denoting no common agitation. ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar

... &c adj.; hold oneself in readiness, keep one's powder dry; lie in wait for &c (expect) 507; anticipate &c (foresee) 510; principiis obstare [Lat.]; veniente occurrere morbo [Lat.]. Adj. preparing &c v.; in preparation, in course of preparation, in agitation, in embryo, in hand, in train; afoot, afloat; on foot, on the stocks, on the anvil; under consideration &c (plan) 626; brewing, batching, forthcoming, brooding; in store for, in reserve. precautionary, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... fit of nervous agitation, and then the Hakim was walking gravely and full of dignity of mien to where the injured man lay, the professor following him, ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn

... signed the first edict against this sect in 1772, but agitation was more or less constant until the Imperial government began vigorous prosecutions in 1871, and many were sentenced to hard labor in Siberia. When prosecutions were instituted, large numbers emigrated to Roumania and ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter

... would not be possible for a humane and intelligent person to invent a rational excuse for slavery; yet you will remember that in the early days of the emancipation agitation in the North the agitators got but small help or countenance from any one. Argue and plead and pray as they might, they could not break the universal stillness that reigned, from pulpit and press all the way down to the bottom of society—the clammy stillness created and maintained ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... difference is that instead of receiving his report we now see him in the act of judging and reflecting; his consciousness, no longer a matter of hearsay, a matter for which we must take his word, is now before us in its original agitation. Here is a spectacle for the reader, with no obtrusive interpreter, no transmitter of light, no conductor of meaning. This man's interior life is cast into the world of independent, rounded objects; it is given room to show itself, it appears, it acts. A distinction is made ...
— The Craft of Fiction • Percy Lubbock

... it in a minute. And what a square, for recreative dancing! And what a people, to be turning it into a place of political agitation! And what a country, where from morning to night it's an endless wrangle about the first conditions of existence! Old Colney seems right now and then: they 're the offspring of pirates, and they 've got the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... members of the Cigarette Makers' Union pay a weekly due of 5 cents for the support of a sanatorium in Colorado for tubercular tobacco workers. Yetta contributed to this sanatorium and gave a 10-cent monthly fee for Union agitation. ...
— Making Both Ends Meet • Sue Ainslie Clark and Edith Wyatt

... in iron cylinders, provided with an agitating arrangement. This may consist of a steam injector by means of which air is made to bubble through the liquid, which produces both the required agitation and the heating, and at the same time oxidizes at least part of the sulphides; but this method of agitation causes a great waste of steam and at the same time a further dilution of the liquor. Many, therefore, prefer mechanical stirring by means of paddles, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... the point. With a faint groan he ran his fingers through his hair and began to pace up and down the room in agitation. ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay

... tongue had controlled mobs and senates, courts and councils, whose subtle spirit had metamorphosed itself into a thousand shapes to do battle with the genius of tyranny, now quenched the feverish agitation of his youth and manhood in Hebrew and classical lore. A grand and noble figure always: most pathetic when thus redeeming by vigorous but solitary and melancholy hard labor, the political error which had condemned him to retirement. To work, ever ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... car from Shale Court stopped at the gate of the blacksmith's cottage on the following morning Mrs. Rickett, who was feeding her young chicks in the yard outside the forge, was thrown into a state of wild agitation. Everyone in Little Shale stood in awe ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell

... please him, his face suddenly changed color, and the hand which held the letter began to tremble. Mr. Richmond became startled, for he well knew that business losses, which Mr. Acton had often experienced and borne calmly, could not be the cause of this agitation. He touched him lightly on the shoulder and said, with deep concern: "Do tell me ...
— After Long Years and Other Stories • Translated from the German by Sophie A. Miller and Agnes M. Dunne

... at very short intervals, thirteen times; and each time the basin overflowed and ejected a considerable quantity of water. The sounds did not seem to proceed from subterranean ragings, but from the violent agitation of the waters. In a minute and a half all was over; the water no longer overflowed, the caldron and basin remained filled, and I returned to my tent disappointed in every way. This phenomenon was repeated every two hours ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer

... elucidation for the wide masses of the workers of the tremendous character of the economic problems of the country to be one of the chief problems of industrial and general political agitation and propaganda; and of equal importance to this, technical education, and administrative and scientific technical experience. The Congress makes it obligatory on all the members of the party mercilessly to fight that particular ...
— The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism • Bertrand Russell

... against any active expression of the national feeling, and the few 'nationalists' and the 'League for the cultural unity of all Rumanians' had been, as a consequence, driven to seek a justification for their existence in antisemitic agitation. ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth

... prevailed over the sullenness of Vincent, who was indeed in a state of agitation and incapacity to think for himself, which led him to yield the more readily to the suggestions of another. He suffered himself to be dragged into the small tavern which Richie recommended, and where they soon found themselves seated in a snug niche, with a reeking ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott

... is a giant, a huge, delightful baby in a mob-cap, turns out his elbows, strives eagerly after something. My wife falls into an ecstasy of agitation and emotion when she holds him in her arms; but I am completely at a loss to understand. I know that he has a great store of physical energy, but whether there is any purpose for which the store is wanted I ...
— Reminiscences of Tolstoy - By His Son • Ilya Tolstoy

... been referring to his watch several times, and Blair began to suspect that something was wrong. But just then supper was announced. As they passed into the dining-room, the American thought he noticed signs of agitation on the maid's face. He wondered secretly what the rest of ...
— Kathleen • Christopher Morley

... mark'd him well. I met his eye's last glance; It menac'd not so proudly as of yore. Methought he would have spoke—but that he dar'd not— Such agitation darken'd ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... Heuschrecke, our Professor's chief friend and associate in Weissnichtwo, with whom we had not previously corresponded. The Hofrath, after much quite extraneous matter, began dilating largely on the 'agitation and attention' which the Philosophy of Clothes was exciting in its own German Republic of Letters; on the deep significance and tendency of his Friend's Volume; and then, at length, with great circumlocution, ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle

... which came from the lower part of the Rue du Mont Blanc, and swept like a sonorous wave toward the Rue de la Victoire, told Josephine of her husband's return. The impressionable Creole had awaited him anxiously. She sprang to meet him in such agitation that she was unable to utter a ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas

... will at once recall the story of the Rebellion of 1837, the struggle for constitutional government, the investigation by Lord Durham, the repeal of the preferential wheat duties in England, the agitation for Canadian independence, and other great questions that so seriously disturbed the peace of the Canadian people. They were the 'growing pains' of a progressive people. The Crimean War, in 1854-56, gave an important ...
— History of Farming in Ontario • C. C. James

... shouted a ghostly shout, and set off in vast leaps towards it. I missed one of my leaps and dropped into a deep ravine and twisted my ankle, and after that I stumbled at almost every leap. I was in a state of hysterical agitation, trembling violently, and quite breathless long before I got to it. Three times at least I had to stop with my hands resting on my side and in spite of the thin dryness of the air, the perspiration was wet ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells

... trying to wait for the coming of Red Shirt, but it was still more trying to wait for his coming out again. We could not go to sleep, nor could we remain with our faces stuck to the shoji all the time our minds constantly in a state of feverish agitation. In all my life, I never passed such fretful, mortifying hours. I suggested that we had better go right into his room and catch him but Porcupine rejected the proposal outright. If we get in there at this time of night, we are likely ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri

... as it was, for the danger apparently incurred. The boatman (I had only one) encouraged me, saying, we were quite safe; but I was not a little glad when we gained the shore, though Shelley and Byron—one of them at least who seemed to have courted agitation from every quarter—would have probably rejoiced in such a situation. More than once, I believe, were they both in extreme danger even on the Lake of Geneva. Every man, however, has his fears of some kind or other, and, no doubt, they had theirs. Of all men whom I have ever known, Coleridge ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... in his seat with the bitter conviction that the jury was manifestly against him, and the case as good as lost. But his face was scarcely as disturbed as his client's, who, in great agitation, had begun to argue with him wildly, and was apparently pressing some point against the lawyer's vehement opposal. The Colonel's murky eyes brightened as he still stood erect with his hand thrust in ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various

... in his, and he buries it in his soft beard, or bites the fingers playfully. Her warm cheek is against his on the pillow, and he can feel the flush come and go, the curious little heat that bespeaks agitation. It is an odd, new knowledge, pleasing withal, and though he is in some doubt about the wisdom, ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... was very red in the face, and he had twisted his gloves into a tight cord as if he had been squeezing them dry. These, presumably, were tokens of violent emotion, and it seemed to Newman that the traces of corresponding agitation were visible in Madame de Cintre's face. The two had been talking with much vivacity. "What I should tell you is only to my lord's credit," said Madame de Cintre, smiling ...
— The American • Henry James

... right," said Cuckoo, trying to repress the agitation she always felt now when speaking to Julian. "I ain't ill. Why don't you come to see me now?" she ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens

... education—this privilege she has had for some time—but on all political questions; and connected with this is the right to hold political office. We may fittingly close this chapter by a review of the history of the agitation for woman suffrage. ...
— A Short History of Women's Rights • Eugene A. Hecker

... Thenceforward he hid his agitation by complete composure. No man is strong enough to bear such sudden alternations from the height of happiness to the depths of wretchedness. So he had caught a glimpse of happy life the better to feel the ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac

... greater transparency in its place, and as she stood, half shrinking, with the shadow of profound melancholy on her pallid, but indescribably beautiful countenance, her pencilled brow slightly contracted in the intensity of her excitement, her long lashes dripping in tears, and lips trembling with agitation; she was, though silent, in herself an appeal that a heart of stone could not resist. The monarch gazed long and silently on her, as she stood waiting her doom. Shall she die? No; the golden sceptre slowly rises and points to her. The beautiful intruder is welcome, and sinks like a snow wreath ...
— Half Hours in Bible Lands, Volume 2 - Patriarchs, Kings, and Kingdoms • Rev. P. C. Headley

... king for disturbing his repose, tells him that David was intended to be King of Israel, that himself would be defeated by the Philistines, and that he and his sons would fall in battle. The king enters into no conversation with the apparition; but unable any longer to support his agitation, drops lifeless on the ground. The conjurer returns to Saul, presses him to take some food which she had prepared. He at last complies; and having finished his repast, departs with his servants before the morning. The whole of this scene, it is evident, ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian

... and Clay that the Compromise of 1850 would put an end to the agitation about slavery. "Now we shall have peace," they said. But the agitation became stronger and stronger, and peace seemed farther away than ...
— Four Great Americans: Washington, Franklin, Webster, Lincoln - A Book for Young Americans • James Baldwin

... was rocky, and it was covered with trees. On the sheltered side of it there was a beach, where the party landed. Although this beach was somewhat protected from the wind, still the waves which rolled in kept the water in a state of agitation. They, however, landed here, running the head of ...
— Forests of Maine - Marco Paul's Adventures in Pursuit of Knowledge • Jacob S. Abbott

... the encroachment of a too practical age on the old romance. "Fainting" was the regular thing in the Pickwickian days, in any agitation; "burnt feathers" and the "sal volatile" being the remedy. The beautiful, tender and engaging creatures we see in the annuals, all fainted regularly—and knew how to faint—were perhaps taught it. Thus when Mr. Pickwick was assumed ...
— Pickwickian Manners and Customs • Percy Fitzgerald

... drafted!" Dorn spoke with agitation. He seemed bewildered by Anderson's blunt eloquence. His intelligence evidently accepted the elder man's ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey

... During the agitation, for instance, for the repeal of the 40 D Act, women and women-like men wallowed in righteousness. Never did I hear more nonsense talked than at the meetings I attended on this subject. Women's instinctive attitude had a unique chance of displaying itself, and ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley

... you recognize me?" rejoined Pascal, who in his agitation forgot that the baron had seen him only twice before. He forgot the absence of his beard, his almost ragged clothing, and all the precautions he had taken ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau

... intention. On my table lay, as usual, a small electric torch. Every member of our household was provided with one for use in emergencies likely to occur in a country house, the time of candles being past. Now, rising in agitation and repentance, my hand pressed by chance upon the flashlight's button. A beam of light ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram

... please, without any confusion. I call them back, and they return; I dismiss them, and they sink I know not where. They either assemble or separate, as I please. But I neither know where they lie, nor what they are. Nevertheless I find them always ready. The agitation of so many images, old and new, that revive, join, or separate, never disturbs a certain order that is amongst them. If some of them do not appear at the first summons, at least I am certain they are not far off. They may lurk in some deep corner, but I am not totally ignorant of ...
— The Existence of God • Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon

... say more, but the violence of his agitation forbade it. He could only shake the arm he held again and again, and point to the bench on which Rose sat—her head sunk on her bosom, her hands ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins

... country. Though at the outset his force was not more than a thousand strong, he marched boldly forward in a direct line for Paris, and his numbers continued to swell as he advanced. France was in a state of the greatest agitation, and of hopes and fears for his safety and his success. He arrived at Gasson the 5th, the next day he crossed the Upper Alps, passed on through Grenoble, reached Burgoin on the 10th, and on the ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt

... the sensitive young mind. It brought about an unnatural discord in her moral nature, forbidden all at once to respect what she had loved most, and must continue to love, in spite of all. On the injurious effects of the over-agitation to which she was subjected in her childhood she has laid much stress in her remarkable work, "The Story of My Life." Much of this book, written when she was between forty and fifty, reads like a romance; and had a certain amount of retrospective imagination ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas

... But it was at Prosper he looked, to Prosper he spoke. "My friend," he began, and the accentuation of the Hebraic quality of his voice had an instantaneous effect upon his two listeners. Both Prosper and Betty knew he was master of some intense agitation. They were conscious of an increasing rapidity of their pulses. "My friend, I thought that I knew you fairly well, as one man knows another, but I find that there have been certain limits to my knowledge. How extraordinary ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt

... finally, a due nervous sensibility to receive impressions and communicate the necessary stimulus. The contractile power of the muscular coat, and the free passage of the intestinal contents from the stomach downward, are greatly aided by the constant but gentle agitation which the whole digestive apparatus receives during the act of breathing, and from exercise of every description. By free and deep inhalations of air into the lungs, the diaphragm is depressed and the bowels are pushed down. But when the air is thrown out from the lungs, the diaphragm rises ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew

... Universities was nil; they were true to Dugald Stewart's celebrated deliverance on their conservatism.[8] The general public, however, were not unmoved; during a number of years there was a most material reduction in the numbers attending all the Scotch Universities, and the anti-classical agitation was reputed ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain

... delicate top-gallant-masts, was in its place, preserving the beauty and symmetry of the whole fabric; but nowhere was the smallest fragment of a sail opened to the gale. Under her bows rolled a volume of foam, that was even discernible amid the universal agitation of the ocean; and, as she came within sound, the sullen roar of the water might have been likened to the noise of a cascade. At first, the spectators on the decks of the "Caroline" believed they were not seen, and some of the men called madly for lights, in order that the disasters of the night might ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper

... most cruelly being torn to pieces. I say that nothing essential had changed because the studies followed their usual course, and there was no breakdown of order, but it was impossible that the feverish agitation which reigned outside should not be felt in the college. I will say also that Dom Ferlus, with diplomatic skill, presented the appearance of approving of what he could not prevent. The walls therefore were covered with Republican slogans. It was forbidden ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot

... and the sub-normal, coupled with a demand that all such be sent to some place of confinement, would meet with such a protest from all classes seriously affected as to end not only the demand but the further agitation of the subject. Any such law, if carried out, would not only seriously increase the cost of all industry, but in many instances would make it impossible to carry it on. It is hardly conceivable that above the idiot, society shall make examinations and tests and confine or sterilize large ...
— Crime: Its Cause and Treatment • Clarence Darrow

... feel rush up and that would not be controlled threw her into a state of agitation that was almost ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst

... clasp her hand with a friendly air of confidence. Long after the pressure passed from Olive's fingers, its remembrance lingered in her heart. They walked on a little farther; and then he said, not without some slight agitation, ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)

... reserving to themselves only the more refined forms of government (over chosen disciples or members of an order), religion itself may be used as a means for obtaining peace from the noise and trouble of managing GROSSER affairs, and for securing immunity from the UNAVOIDABLE filth of all political agitation. The Brahmins, for instance, understood this fact. With the help of a religious organization, they secured to themselves the power of nominating kings for the people, while their sentiments prompted them ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche

... happened the night before, detailing the various circumstances with minuteness, and not even concealing from him the sentiments which he entertained towards Miss Constance Temple. In narrating the appearance which he had seen in the chair, his agitation was still so excessive that he had difficulty ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner

... Countess broke the chain of his thoughts. Her hair was disturbed, her eyes had a wild look in them, and everything about her betrayed the state of agitation she was in. ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau



Words linked to "Agitation" :   mental condition, tempestuousness, psychological condition, turbulence, tumult, feeling, swither, restlessness, stirring, wag, fidget, fermentation, movement, dither, waggle, tizzy, lather, excitement, worrying, sweat, fret, fidgetiness, pother, shaking, move, mental state, motility, motion, psychological state, flap, stew, tailspin, disturbance, shake, stewing, calmness, upset, Sturm und Drang, stir, perturbation, fuss



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