| 释义 |
agitation|ædʒɪˈteɪʃən|
[a. (16th c.) Fr. agitation, ad. L. agitātiōn-em n. of action, f. agitā-re: see agitate a.]
The action of agitating.
†1. The action of moving, stirring; motion, action, exercise of activity. Obs.
1573Bp. Cooper Thesaur., Agitatio, moouing, stirring, agitation, exercise. 1610J. Guillim Heraldry iii. xx. (1660) 217 Albeit they..have their feeding upon the earth, yet is their agitation above in the Ayre. 1633T. N[ewton] tr. Lemnie's Touchst. Compl. 167 Likewise doth the body of man become putrified..if it accustome not it selfe to exercise and agitation. 1711F. Fuller Med. Gymn. 4 By Exercise then, I understand all..Motion or Agitation of the Body.
2. esp. The moving of (anything) to and fro; shaking.
1583Plat Jewel-ho. (1594) 47 Or use anie other devise by agitation or shaking, untill you have broken the yolke. 1659Baxter Saving Faith §12. 88 Even Agitation with pressure sometimes sets the Turners wood on fire. 1750Johnson Rambler No. 133 ⁋2 Enabled me to bear the agitation of a coach. 1860Maury Phys. Geog. Sea x. §484 Brought to the surface by the agitation of the sea.
3. A state or condition of being moved to and fro; commotion, disturbance, perturbation.
1605Bacon Adv. Learn. i. vii. §1 (1873) The true character of Divine Presence, coming in..without noise or agitation. 1664Power Exp. Philos. i. 21 A tremulous Motion and Agitation of rowling fumes. 1775Burke Concil. Amer. Wks. III. 27 Under them the state of America has been kept in continual agitation. 1880Cyples Hum. Exp. i. 5 A nervo⁓cerebral system, with specific agitations set up..in it.
4. Mental disturbance or perturbation (showing itself usually by physical excitement).
[1573Bp. Cooper Thesaur., Agitatio mentis, the agitation and exercise of mind.] 1722De Foe Plague (1756) 221, I have seen them in strange Agitations and Surprises on this Account. 1788Johnson Lett. 207 II. 55 Think on such things as may please without too much agitation. 1816Scott Antiq. vii, ‘We thought,’ replied Sir Arthur in great agitation, ‘we thought we could get round Halket-head.’ 1834H. Martineau Demerara iv. 52 A long, deep sob broke from him, and the child, terrified at his agitation, ran away.
5. The mental tossing of a matter to and fro; consideration, debate, discussion.
1596Shakes. Merch. V. iii. v. 5 [Clown says] So now I speake my agitation of the matter. 1625Bacon Ess. (1862) xx. 82 Things will have their first, or second Agitation; If they be not tossed upon the Arguments of Counsell, they will be tossed upon the Waves of Fortune. 1640Fuller Abel Rediv., Sandys (1867) II. 192 The business in agitation very weighty. 1769Junius Lett. xxiii. 112 The latest moments of your life were dedicated to the same..busy agitations. 1865F. Parkman Huguenots (1875) i. 9 While this design was in agitation.
†6. Busy devising, scheming, contrivance. Obs.
1607Topsell Four-footed Beasts (1673) 176 The hunter must..in hunting of a fox..drive him against the winde, and then he preventeth all his crafty and subtill agitations and devises. 1626Howell Lett. (1650) I. 206 You heard how I was in agitation for an employment in Italy.
†7. Eng. Hist. The action of the ‘Agitators’ of 1647. Obs.
a1671Fairfax Short Mem. (1699) 116 The Army was almost wholly infected with this Humour of Agitation. Ibid. 105, I shall now descend to some particulars of their Agitations.
8. The keeping of a political or other object constantly before public attention, by appeals, discussion, etc.; public excitement. See agitate 8. Also, spec. of agitation on behalf of Communism.
1828Ann. Reg., Hist. 122/2 Its [Catholic Association's] orators publicly proclaimed that ‘Agitation,’ as they termed it, was the object which they had in view, and that agitation they would have so long as they found it necessary. 1863W. Phillips Speeches iii. 53 The antislavery agitation. 1879McCarthy Own Times I. 337 With the Manchester school began a new kind of popular agitation. Up to that time agitation meant appeal to passion..The Manchester school introduced the agitation which appealed to reason and argument only; which stirred men's hearts with figures of arithmetic, rather than figures of speech. 1923E. Rice Adding Machine iii. 46 Too damn much agitation, that's at the bottom of it... Foreign agitators, that's what it is. 1946L. Harry Gould Marxist Glossary 11 Agitation, the act of rousing the masses to political action around some particular social injustice. 1948J. Towster Pol. Power in U.S.S.R. x. 195 For the duration of the campaign, agitation points (Agitpunkty) are set up in the election precincts. 1957R. N. C. Hunt Guide to Communist Jargon 3 Ozhegov's Dictionary of the Russian Language defines agitation as ‘Oral and written activity among the broad masses which aims at inculcating certain ideas and slogans for their political education and for attracting them to the solution of the more important social and political tasks’. 1958Economist 1 Nov. 427/1 But in the Soviet Union, the Department of Propaganda and Agitation is one of the seven sections of the central committee of the Communist party. |