Excited

How to spell excited

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce excited

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does excited mean?

1. adjectiveFeeling or showing eager enthusiasm and a happy, stirred-up emotional state.
2. verbPast tense of excite: stirred up strong feelings or roused something into activity.

Excited in a sentence

• adjective

  The children were too excited to sleep the night before the trip.

• verb

  The surprise announcement excited everyone in the office.

• adjective

  She felt excited about starting her new job on Monday.

• verb

  The coach's speech excited the players before the match.

Where does excited come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb excitare, meaning 'to call out', 'to rouse', or 'to stir up'. It was built from the prefix ex- 'out' and citare 'to set in motion' or 'to summon', a frequentative of ciere 'to move' or 'to call'. English borrowed the base verb 'excite' through Old French exciter in the late 1300s, when it carried the sense of stirring something into action, including emotions and even physical things like fires or rebellions. The familiar 'excited' is simply that verb with the -ed ending, describing a state of heightened feeling or stimulation. The same cit root surfaces in relatives such as 'cite', 'incite', and 'recite', all sharing the idea of calling or rousing something out, which helps explain why the single 't' (not a doubled one) and the c-before-i spelling feel regular once the root is recognised.

How the word is built

• ex- (out)
• cit (from citare: to set in motion, rouse)
• -ed (past/adjective suffix)