Other forms: agendas
An agenda is the list of what a meeting will cover, in the order it will be covered. Printed at the top of the page, item three is the budget, and 'any other business' sits at the bottom.
It also means the real motives behind what somebody says — a hidden agenda, a political agenda, 'she has an agenda'. That use comes loaded: nobody talks about the agenda of a person they trust. There is a neutral middle sense as well, the set of issues a group means to tackle over time, as in 'climate is back on the agenda' or 'setting the agenda'. Watch the prepositions: an item is ON the agenda, you PUT something on the agenda, and a subject can TOP the agenda. Note too that agenda was a Latin plural, but English treats it as one thing — an agenda, two agendas.
1nounagendaA list of the items to be discussed at a meeting, in order.
“The chair circulated the agenda the night before.”
synonyms: order of business, programme
2nounaimsThe aims someone is really pursuing, especially when they are concealed.
“He was not asking out of curiosity; he had an agenda.”
3nounsetThe set of issues a person or group intends to deal with.
“Housing has climbed to the top of the political agenda this year.”
Agenda is a piece of Latin grammar left standing in English. Agendus came from ago, to do, and the form meant 'the things that ought to be done' — a plural, strictly speaking. English took that plural, forgot it was one, and now makes it plural all over again: agendas. The list on the table is still, word for word, the things to be done.
Proto-Indo-European
*h₂eǵ-
Latin
agendus
English, today
agenda
Built from
From Latin agendus. From Latin agendus (“things that ought to be done”), future passive participle (gerundive) of agō (“to do, act, make”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA