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Actuate   Listen
verb
Actuate  v. t.  (past & past part. actuated; pres. part. actuating)  
1.
To put into action or motion; to move or incite to action; to influence actively; to move as motives do; more commonly used of persons. "Wings, which others were contriving to actuate by the perpetual motion." "Men of the greatest abilities are most fired with ambition; and, on the contrary, mean and narrow minds are the least actuated by it."
2.
To carry out in practice; to perform. (Obs.) "To actuate what you command."
Synonyms: To move; impel; incite; rouse; instigate; animate.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Actuate" Quotes from Famous Books



... seem, that the torpid motions of the stomach, whatever may occasion them, are a very frequent cause of continued fever with weak pulse; and that these torpid motions of the stomach do not sufficiently excite the sensorial power of association, which contributes in health to actuate the heart and arteries along with the irritation produced by the stimulus of the blood; and hence the actions of these organs are weaker. And lastly, that the accumulation of the sensorial power of association, ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... the other vices which stained their conduct, discovered their secret intentions. Their anxiety for enriching themselves, their vanity, the authority which they exercised over the poor Indians, are the motives which actuate them, and not the love of God or ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson

... somehow; but that would mean to get out of one's self and be one's other, which is self-contradictory, etc. Meanwhile each of us actually is his own other to that extent, livingly knowing how to perform the trick which logic tells us can't be done. My thoughts animate and actuate this very body which you see and hear, and thereby influence your thoughts. The dynamic current somehow does get from me to you, however numerous the intermediary conductors may have to be. Distinctions may be insulators in logic as much as they like, but in life distinct things ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James

... motive that can actuate an Authour in the dedication of his labours, concurs in directing me to you, as the person to whom the following Work should ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... as to induce them to remain peaceable spectators of enjoyments beyond their attainment, except that unaffected benevolence which shall continually actuate the heart to communicate all the happiness it has the power to bestow. This only can so temper oppression as to render gradual and orderly ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... dark, waiting craft the two they had watched were even now stealing, tense with the weight of their daring and their crime. In a moment they would reach her, enter her, actuate machinery that was miraculous in its complex simplicity, and be gone then on the wings it gave them into the concealing embrace ...
— The Indulgence of Negu Mah • Robert Andrew Arthur

... this nature are sometimes received with feelings as mixed as those which actuate them; and Mrs. Peniston remarked to her confidential maid that, if any of the family were to be with her at such a crisis (though for forty years she had been thought competent to see to the hanging of her own curtains), she would certainly have preferred Miss ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton

... me. Still, even with that limitation, it may seem strange to my readers that I have not had more to say of the wonder excited in my mind by the number and character of the great mechanical inventions and applications unknown in my day, which contribute to the material fabric and actuate the mechanism of your civilization. For example, although this was very far from being my first air trip, I do not think that I have before referred to a sort of experience which, to a representative of the last century, must naturally have been nothing less than ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy

... well worth reading by those who wish to learn something of the motives which originally led the Southern States into rebellion, and still actuate them in their obstinate resistance. To any one familiar with the history of the last thirty years, it would almost seem that Mr. Pollard's object had been to expose the futility of the pretences set up by the originators of Secession, so utterly does he fail ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell

... soul of man, and interesting objects have a powerful influence on our affections. Let these influencing powers actuate, by the permission or disposal of Providence, from selfish or social views, yet in time the mysterious will of Heaven is unfolded, and we behold our conduct, from whatsoever motives excited, operating to answer the important designs ...
— The Adventures of Daniel Boone: the Kentucky rifleman • Uncle Philip

... all nations the first ideas of religion arose not from a contemplation of the works of nature, but from a concern with regard to the events of life, and from the incessant hopes and fears which actuate the human mind." A century before him Hobbes had written in his terse way: "The natural seed of religion lies in these four things: the fear of spirits, ignorance of secondary causes, the conciliation of those we fear, and the assumption of accidents for omens."[81-1] The sentiment of religion ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton

... of the situation was the mystery of it! What motive could have actuate the criminal? Had the blow been struck by a personal enemy, in payment of a grudge, or had robbery been the motive? Surely not the latter, for the injured man's valuable watch and chain, his diamonds, were in place. Stocks and bonds, good in the hands ...
— Boy Scouts in Mexico; or On Guard with Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson

... the slopes of the Grampians alive with the Highland host, some on foot, some in chariots, armed with claymore, dirk, and targe as in later ages. He puts into the mouth of the leader, Galgacus, an eloquent summary of the motives which did really actuate them, and he reports the exhortation to close the fifty years of British warfare with a glorious victory which Agricola, no doubt, actually addressed to his soldiers. He paints for us the wild charge of the clans, the varying fortunes of the conflict (which ...
— Early Britain—Roman Britain • Edward Conybeare

... up the labor unions as offering a model for the spirit which should actuate us or the methods we should follow—because their class-consciousness and the resulting conduct are sometimes extreme and often shortsighted, I would urge upon business men to cultivate and demonstrate but a little of that cohesion and discipline and subordination of self in the furtherance ...
— High Finance • Otto H. Kahn

... Empire, of which it is the proudest boast of Canadians that their country forms a part, to the connection which is usually found to exist between the material prosperity and the political contentment of a people, for in doing so they feel that they are appealing to the highest motives that can actuate patriotic statesmen—the desire to perpetuate a dominion founded on the affectionate allegiance of ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin

... are rare in Japan, which is owing to the high-spirited and honourable feelings that actuate all classes of the community; but from the feudal nature of the government, the small value attached to life, and the deadly weapons constantly carried, by the military classes, who are notoriously proud and revengeful, crimes against the person ...
— Sketches of Japanese Manners and Customs • J. M. W. Silver

... as I expect the Prince and his confessor at Rookchester, where I hope you will join us, we may perhaps find out the reasons which actuate that no doubt respectable person. In the meantime, as I would constrain nobody in matters of religion, I informed the Prince that he had my permission to—well, to plead his cause for himself ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang

... so on? What is the good of it all, if these things do not make us 'live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world'? What is the good of the sails of a windmill going whirling round, if the machinery has been thrown out of gear, and the great stones which it ought to actuate are not revolving? What is the good of the screw of a steamer revolving, when she pitches, clean above the waves? It does nothing then to drive the vessel onwards, but will only damage the machinery. And Christian emotions and experiences ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... fitted by the latter firm, is 37 feet long and 7 feet beam. She draws 2'6" of water when carrying 40 persons, for whom there is ample sitting accommodation. There are 64 cells in this boat. These are placed as ballast under the floor, and actuate a pair of motors and a screw coupled direct to the armature shaft running at 700 revolutions a minute. We crossed the English Channel with this boat in September of last year, leaving Dover at 10:40 in the morning, arriving at Calais at 2:30 P.M.; stayed about an hour in the French harbor ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 620, November 19,1887 • Various



Words linked to "Actuate" :   happen, make, pass, affect, do, set off, actuation, spark, motivate, touch off, trigger, spark off, propel, activate, go on, incite, prompt, strike, act, take place



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