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To goad or urge forward; to set on; to provoke; to incite; -- used chiefly with reference to evil actions; as to instigate one to a crime. He hath only instigated his blackest agents to the very extent of their malignity. Bp. Warburton.

The act of instigating, or the state of being instigated; incitement; esp. to evil or wickedness. The baseness and villainy that . . . the instigation of the devil could bring the sons of men to. South.

One who instigates or incites. Burke.

Instinct; incitement; inspiration. [Obs.] Sir T. Elyot.

the passions; to rouse; to provoke; to excite to action; to heat; to fire; to animate; to incite; as, to kindle anger or wrath; to kindle the flame of love, or love into a flame. So is a contentious man to kindle strife. Prov. xxvi. 21. Nothing remains but that I kindle the boy thither. Shak. Kindling her undazzled eye…

ws most true mettle when you check his course. Pope. To put one one's mettle, to cause or incite one to use one's best efforts.

To provide with a motive; to move; impel; induce; incite. -- Mo`ti*va"tion (#), n. William James.

That which incites to action; anything prompting or exciting to choise, or moving the will; cause; reason; inducement; object. By motive, I mean the whole of that which moves, excites, or invites the mind to volition, whether that be one thing singly, or many things conjunctively. J. Edwards.

Destitute of a motive; not incited by a motive. -- Mo"tive*less*ness, n. G. Eliot.

That which persuades; an inducement; an incitement; an exhortation. -- Per*sua"sive*ly, adv. -- Per*sua"sive*ness, n.

To ride or guide with spurs; to spur; to goad; to incite; to urge on; -- sometimes with on, or off. Who pricketh his blind horse over the fallows. Chaucer. The season pricketh every gentle heart. Chaucer. My duty pricks me on to utter that. Shak.

h something sharp; as, to prod a soldier with a bayonet; to prod oxen; hence, to goad, to incite, to worry; as, to prod a student. H. Taylor.

To urge on or incite another, as to strife; also, to inform against a person. [Obs.]

To assist or induce the action of; to move to action; to instigate; to incite. God first . . . prompted on the infirmities of the infant world by temporal prosperity. Jer. Taylor.

One who, or that which, prompts; one who admonishes or incites to action.

Suggestion; incitement; prompting. [R.] Shak. Coleridge.

Incitement; stimulus; as, provocation to mirth.

incense to action, a faculty or passion, as love, hate, or ambition; hence, commonly, to incite, as a person, to action by a challenge, by taunts, or by defiance; to exasperate; to irritate; to offend intolerably; to cause to retaliate. Obey his voice, provoke him not. Ex. xxiii. 21. Ye fathers, provoke not your child…

The act that which, provokes; one who excites anger or other passion, or incites to action; as, a provoker of sedition. Drink, sir, is a great provoker of three things. Shak.

To incite; to entice; to urge; to constrain; to oblige. These wretches put us upon all mischief. Swift. Put me not use the carnal weapon in my own defense. Sir W. Scott. Thank him who puts me, loath, to this revenge. Milton.