1645 J. Lightfoot Comm. Acts xi. 309 Claudius the Emperour having attained the Empire..the more easily and readily by the mediation and agitating of Agrippa.

1659 P. Heylyn Examen Historicum i. 264 Our Author doth profess, that in the agitating of this Controversie pro and con, he will reserve his private opinion to himself.

1771 Gentleman's Mag. Aug. 348/1 These being at first only irregular fragments of rocks, with their points rounded off, by the agitating of the waves, rolling them backwards and forwards on the beach.

1787 Parl. Reg. Ireland VII. 473 Then perhaps the agitating of those matters will not redound much to his advantage.

1832 Circular to Bankers 21 Sept. 73/1 The agitating of the Bank Question.

1890 Trans. Canad. Soc. Civil Engineers 1889 3 290 The agitating of the solution with lime produces carbonate of lime and a solution of caustic soda.

1989 M. Felsen Anti-warrior xiv. 218 After the seeds are ground by the agitating of the stones in the can, they can be boiled in water to yield nutrition.

2005 Time Out N.Y. 27 Oct. 141/1 The progressive crews that..view groove-based agitating as a key strategy for racial uplift.

1620 T. Venner Via Recta ii. 32 Wine is vnto them [sc. youths] most repugnant; because it doth aboue measure heate their hastie, hot, and agitating nature.

1665 R. Hooke Micrographia vii. 41 Cold, as I said before, contracting Bodies, that is, by the abatement of the agitating faculty the parts falling neerer together.

1729 A. Motte tr. I. Newton Math. Princ. Nat. Philos. II. ii. vii. 112 The whole forces..which are compounded of each of the agitating forces..will have like directions.

1877 C. Patmore Unknown Eros ix. 41 Until the vanward billows feel The agitating shallows.

1929 H. A. A. Nicholls & J. H. Holland Text-bk. Trop. Agric. (ed. 2) i. v. 49 For continuous sowing, the bottom of the seed hopper is provided with an agitating star wheel, which regularly carries the seed to a continuous sowing cotton picker wheel revolving in the opposite direction immediately beneath it.

2005 C. Mendelson Laundry Introd. p. xii My mother had an agitating washing machine with an electric-powered wringer that you fed clothes into by hand.

1650 N. Cowling Surv. Tyrannie 20 At length David himself thought that Samuel had told him a lye, and was fain (with all his agitating Blades) to fly to the uncircumcised Philistines.

1813 Let. to Earl of Fingal 31 What a rapid progress these agitating Barristers have made in alienating and disgusting the warmest friends of your cause.

1839 Church Mag. Dec. 380 These agitating demagogues—these contemners and revilers of the law—these disturbers of the peace of the community and enemies of the laws and the people.

1922 Weekly Rev. Far East 4 Mar. 34/2 Martial law has again been declared..with a view to eliminating agitating agents from Canton now at work in these cities.

1968 J. Kerouac in P. Maher Empty Phantoms (2005) 303 The Buddha of Vietnam, who just shaves his hair and puts on a yellow robe and is a communist agitating agent.

1990 Times of India 17 May 1 The agitating workers of the Bombay Share Bazar Staff Union.

a1671 T. Fairfax Short Mem. (1699) 119 To prepare a way to this Work, this Agitating Council did first intend to remove all out of the Parliament who were like to oppose them.

1765 L. Sterne Life Tristram Shandy VIII. xiii. 36 Love is..one of the most Agitating Bewitching..Futilitous..of all human passions.

1796 F. Burney Camilla V. x. xi. 470 This reverie, poignantly agitating, yet undefinably soothing.

1814 R. Southey Roderick IX. xviii. 162 The active agitating joy that fill'd The vale.

1866 ‘G. Eliot’ Felix Holt I. iv. 93 He trembled under the pressure of some agitating thought.

1922 W. B. Maxwell Spinster of this Parish xiii. 293 ‘I am quite all right,’ said Emmie. ‘But I have had a rather agitating day’.

1951 M. Kennedy Lucy Carmichael v. iii. 255 She was lovely and strange and agitating.

2007 Diamond Valley Leader (Austral.) (Nexis) 19 Dec. 414 Waiting in a slow toilet queue at a busy shopping centre is arguably among life's most agitating moments.