Other forms: inciting, incited, incites
To incite is to stir people up to do something violent. Incite a riot, incite hatred, incited the crowd.
It is a criminal offence in its own right in most systems — inciting an act is punishable whether or not the act follows, which is the whole point of the charge. It is nearly always used of bad ends. Note that the Latin means to set in motion, from ciere, to rouse, the same root as excite.
1verbinciteTo stir people up to do something violent.
“He was arrested for inciting the crowd to attack the police.”
incite is a stirring up.
Latin incitare is in plus citare, to rouse, from ciere. Excite, cite and recite come from the same rousing.
Proto-Indo-European
*keyh₂-
Latin
incitō — to set in motion, hasten, urge, incite
Middle French
inciter
English, today
incite
Built from
From Middle French inciter, from Latin incitō (“to set in motion, hasten, urge, incite”), from in (“in, on”) + citō (“to set in motion, urge”), frequentative of cieō (“to rouse, excite, call”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA