Excitement

How to spell excitement

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce excitement

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does excitement mean?

1. nounA feeling of eager, lively enthusiasm or thrill in response to something.

Excitement in a sentence

• The children could barely contain their excitement on the morning of the trip.

• There was a buzz of excitement in the office when the merger was announced.

Where does excitement come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin verb excitare, meaning 'to call out, rouse, or stir up', which was built from ex- ('out' or 'thoroughly') and citare ('to set in motion or summon'), itself a frequentative of ciere, 'to move or rouse'. English took the verb 'excite' through Old French exciter in the late 1300s, originally with the sense of stirring something into action. The noun 'excitement' was then formed within English (and French) by adding the suffix -ment, which turns a verb into a noun naming the result of the action. For a long time it carried the neutral meaning of 'a stirring up' or 'agitation', as in exciting an emotion or a riot, before settling into its modern sense of pleasurable eager feeling. The same cit root still surfaces in relatives like 'recite', 'incite', and 'solicit', all involving calling or rousing.

How the word is built

• ex- (out, thoroughly)
• cit (from ciere: to set in motion, rouse)
• -ment (noun-forming suffix)