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Actuate   /ˈæktʃˌuˈeɪt/   Listen
Actuate

verb
(past & past part. actuated; pres. part. actuating)
1.
Put in motion or move to act.  Synonyms: activate, set off, spark, spark off, touch off, trigger, trigger off, trip.  "Actuate the circuits"
2.
Give an incentive for action.  Synonyms: incite, motivate, move, prompt, propel.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Actuate" Quotes from Famous Books



... Plants, but is transferred also to the Plasticall power in Animalls, I enlarge it to all magnetick power whatsoever that doth immediately rule and actuate any body. For all magnetick power is founded in Physis, and in reference to her, this world is but one great Plant, (one logos spermatikos giving it shape and corporeall life) as in reference to Psyche, one happy and ...
— Democritus Platonissans • Henry More

... as the principle, on which Archbishop Laud and his followers acted, went to re-actuate the idea of the Church, as a co-ordinate and living Power by right of Christ's institution and express promise, I go along with them; but I soon discover that by the Church they meant the Clergy, the hierarchy exclusively, ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge

... Volta, which was entirely 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 ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 620, November 19,1887 • Various

... to the end that the matrices may be properly engaged and disengaged by the pawls. For these reasons, and to secure easy and uniform action of the parts, the mechanism shown in Figs. 5 and 6 is introduced between the finger-keys and escapements. The vertical rods C, which actuate the escapements, are guided in the main frame, and each is urged downward by a spring c. Each rod C terminates directly over one end of a rising and falling yoke-bar c2, turning on a pivot c3 at the opposite end. Each of the yokes c2 is slotted vertically ...
— A Book of Exposition • Homer Heath Nugent

... embarrassing position," quickly retorted the former, with an offended air. "But should I wish to do so, I should hardly be deterred from it by either of the considerations you have just named, I think. And, indeed, if the mercenary and ambitious motives, which you would have actuate me, were alone to be my guide in such a step, I could see but little temptation for the sacrifice in the honors and wealth which are so much to depend on a triumph that, for all your boasts, I believe ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson

... enquire too minutely into the cause which might actuate him in this instance: suffice it to say, he immediately put the plan in execution; and in three days from the time he first saw the unfortunate Lieutenant, he had the superlative felicity of seeing him at liberty, and receiving an ample reward in the tearful ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson

... women generally were little more to him than children. He talked to them without putting out all his powers, and listened to them without any idea that what he should hear from them could either actuate his conduct ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... other side of the table, and the game was resumed. It was interesting to watch them gamble. Red Pearce had a scale at his end of the table, and he was always measuring and weighing out gold-dust. The value of the gold appeared to be fifteen dollars to the ounce, but the real value of money did not actuate the gamblers. They spilled the dust on the table and ground as if it were as common as sand. Still there did not seem to be any great quantity of gold in sight. Evidently these were not profitable times for the bandits. More ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey

... the noble impulses of Washington at the age of twenty-two, and such continued to actuate him throughout life. We have put the latter part of the quotation in italics, as applicable to the motives which in after life carried him ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving

... decried 'private' motives, which actuate all men—these universal natural instincts, which impel men yet more intensely, by the concentration of the larger sensibility, and the faculty of the nobler nature of their species, to seek their own private good,—even in these forces, which, unenlightened and uncounterbalanced, tend in ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon

... the authority of his ecclesiastical guides. He was educated in the Lesser Asia, amidst the scandals of the Arian controversy. The fierce contests of the Eastern bishops, the incessant alterations of their creeds, and the profane motives which appeared to actuate their conduct, insensibly strengthened the prejudice of Julian, that they neither understood nor believed the religion for which they so fiercely contended. Instead of listening to the proofs of Christianity ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... duties, must be very imperfectly acquainted with human nature, and with the motives by which men are influenced in all quarters of the world; but we are none of us so ignorant, for we all know that the same motives actuate public servants in India as elsewhere. We have acted successfully upon this knowledge in the scale of salaries and gradation of rank assigned to European civil functionaries, and to all native functionaries employed in the judicial ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... clothes as best we might, we dragged the body into the chasm we had prepared for its reception. Glad were we then to be enabled to throw the earth upon it and to stamp upon it with such vehemence as might well be supposed to actuate men deeply anxious to put out of sight some ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest

... circumstances. There were no grounds on which to found a caution, yet Grace felt full of discomfort and distrust, a feeling shared by Alison, who had never forgiven herself for her half confidence, and felt that it would be wiser to tell the rest, but was withheld by knowing that her motive would actuate her sister to a contrary course. That Colin should detach himself from her, love again, and marry, was what Ermine schooled herself to think fitting; but Alison alternated between indignant jealousy for her sister, and the desire to warn Rachel that she might ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge

... as among the most valuable materials which exist for illustrating the social condition of the people at the period to which they belong. Executed, as they must be, at moments the most solemn displaying, as we cannot but believe they do, the real feelings which actuate the testators; and having for their object the distribution of existing property, and that of every possible variety of description, it is obvious that they alike call for investigation, and are calculated to repay any labour that ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 46, Saturday, September 14, 1850 • Various

... they all. They had given of their abundance; it had cost them no self-denial—but she, of her penury, had cast in all the living that she had. God looks not only on the outward act, but at the heart. He sees the motives which actuate us. He saw Nelly's heart, and he approved her generosity. He gave her an approving conscience, which made her very happy—far happier than she could have been if she had been selfish, and thought only of her ...
— The Nest in the Honeysuckles, and other Stories • Various

... has the same commercial interest in this respect as Great Britain, with the added motive that partition would give her nothing at all in China; while Japan feels the most strongly of all for she has both the reasons that actuate the United States and also the vital one of self-preservation. The Hon. Chester Holcombe says that several years ago, in an interview with an influential member of the Japanese Cabinet in Tokio, the conversation turned upon the aggressions of European Powers and the weakness of Korea, ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN

... would be in the event of capture or defeat. There would be direr, slower vengeance wreaked on them than on the alien British. But they had eaten British salt and pledged their word, and nothing short of death could free them from it. There was not a shred of self interest to actuate them; there could not have been. Their given word was law and ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy

... as far as possible to formulate their accusations. This stupid kind of tittle-tattle is hateful to you, and you are anxious to put a stop to it as soon as possible. Am I right? Have I laid finger on the sentiments which actuate you? But you are not satisfied by turning your own brain, you want to do, or rather do, the same thing to my good Razoumikhin. Really, it is a pity to upset so good a fellow! His kindness exposes him more than anyone else to suffer contagion from your own malady. ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various

... the one taken from Icelandic saga, the other from American Indian tradition, shew clearly the oneness which the uncultivated mind believes to exist between the soul of man and the soul of beast. The same sentiments actuate both man and brute, and if their actions are unlike, it is because of the difference in their formation. The soul within is identical, but the external accidents of body ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould

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

... not be withdrawn. Do not let that feeling actuate you. Answer me out of your heart, and however your heart may answer, remember this, that my friendship and support shall be the same. If you will take me for your husband, as your husband will I stand ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope

... though with less caution and qualification, in a work written by the same hand many years before, which is recognized as a legal classic on both sides of the Atlantic. In "The Common Law,"[Footnote: Pp. 35, 36.] after discussing some of the reasons which actuate judges in assuming to unfold the unwritten law, it ...
— The American Judiciary • Simeon E. Baldwin, LLD

... Brotherly Love, Relief, and Truth. And it is true that a Brotherly affection and kindness should govern us in all our intercourse and relations with our brethren; and a generous and liberal philanthropy actuate us in regard to all men. To relieve the distressed is peculiarly the duty of Masons—a sacred duty, not to be omitted, neglected, or coldly or inefficiently complied with. It is also most true, that Truth is a Divine attribute and the foundation ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... 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, which ought to be expended on the motions ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... Democrat, as before the war—the purpose of that war and of the Convention that nominated him having been accomplished—and under no obligations, especially of a partisan character, to adopt or promote the partisan purposes relative to reconstruction or otherwise, that came to actuate the ...
— History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, • Edumud G. Ross

... At length, just before we came into the country, one of them, by an act of the basest treachery, killed two white men, Boot and May, who were trapping among the mountains. For this act it was impossible to discover a motive. It seemed to spring from one of those inexplicable impulses which often actuate Indians and appear no better than the mere outbreaks of native ferocity. No sooner was the murder committed than the whole tribe were in extreme consternation. They expected every day that the avenging dragoons would arrive, little thinking ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... hold 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 ...
— High Finance • Otto H. Kahn

... charter under which you are assembled, and which in defining your powers designates the objects to which your attention is to be given. It will be more consistent with those circumstances, and far more congenial with the feelings which actuate me to substitute in place of a recommendation of particular measures, the tribute that is due to the talents, the rectitude, and the patriotism which adorn the characters selected to devise and adopt them. In these honorable qualifications, ...
— Key-Notes of American Liberty • Various

... magisterial gravity, as if he had been handling some profound point of divinity. He made a learned distinction of the several sorts of appetites; of that a man has before he begins to eat, and of those after the second and third service; the means simply to satisfy the first, and then to raise and actuate the other two; the ordering of the sauces, first in general, and then proceeded to the qualities of the ingredients and their effects; the differences of salads according to their seasons, those which ought to be served up hot, and which cold; the manner ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... unquestionably shewn a great willingness upon this occasion to be trained, and, I make not the least doubt, would oppose with vigour any invasion of the Americans—but how far the same sentiments would actuate them were a French force to join, I will not undertake to say; at any rate, I feel that every consideration of prudence and policy ought to determine me to keep in Quebec a sufficient force to secure its safety; the number of troops that could therefore be safely detached would ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper

... of all the Leyden leaders, whatever their birth or station,—so grandly proven in those terrible days of general sickness and death at New Plymouth,—to be certain that with them, under all circumstances, it was noblesse oblige, and that no self-seeking would actuate them here. It should be remembered that the MAY-FLOWER was primarily a passenger transport, her passengers being her principal freight and occupying the most of the ship, the heavier cargo being chiefly confined ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames

... what does it present? A dreary waste of life, varied only by remorse. Had my career been yours, you would perhaps have looked on it differently; but I cannot. Oh, Annie, once more, I beseech, let not such principles actuate your future conduct; they are wrong, they will load to misery here, and what ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar

... 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. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... which the greatest bestowment ever made on humanity, the beginning of an altogether new era, the equipment of the Church for her age- long conflict, is told. There was an actual impartation to men of a divine life, to dwell in them and actuate them; to bring all good to victory in them; to illuminate, sustain, direct, and elevate; to cleanse and quicken. The gift was complete. They were 'filled.' No doubt they had much more to receive, and they received it, as their natures became, by faithful obedience ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren

... Pieces. Or perhaps in Pastoral most; since the Coolness and Sedateness of Pastoral is very apt to sate and tire the Reader, if he dwell's long on one Action; and we can bear a longer Description of a Battle than of two Shepherd's sitting together; because the first fill's and actuate's the Mind the most; and where it is so much employ'd, it cannot so easily ...
— A Full Enquiry into the Nature of the Pastoral (1717) • Thomas Purney

... other, are the result merely of education and habit. It seems to be a part of heroism, among the polished nations of it, to sacrifice the virtuous fair one, whenever an opportunity offers, and thence it is concluded that the same principles actuate those of the new world. It is egregiously absurd to judge all of all countries by one. In Spain, Portugal and Italy, jealousy reigns; in France, England, and Holland, suspicion; in the West and East Indies, lust; in New England, superstition. ...
— Bundling; Its Origin, Progress and Decline in America • Henry Reed Stiles

... Quakers censured these diversions from the first formation of their society, and laid down such moral principles with respect to the treatment of animals, as were subversive of their continuance. These principles continued to actuate all true Quakers, who were their successors; and they gave a proof, in their own conduct, that they were influenced by them, not only in treating the different animals under their care with tenderness, ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson

... out; but everything favoured it. As for the essential idea, I do not place it, as regards ingenuity, in the same class with, for example, the idea of utilizing the force of recoil in a discharged firearm to actuate the mechanism of ejecting and reloading. I do, however, admit, as I did at the outset, that in respect of details the case had unusual features. It developed a high degree ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley

... in connection with the career of Paul. Endowed with brilliant talents, learned, living at the time and place, he must have been able to form a reliable opinion. And yet, while all the motives that commonly actuate men loudmouthed consistency, fame, wealth, pride, pleasure, the rooted force of inveterate prejudices all were beckoning to him from the temples and palaces of the Pharisaic establishment, he spurned the glowing ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... spirit and truth—of the external appointed ordinances according to the word of truth, and the spirit of truth,—and of the spirit and inward soul-affection and sincerity which shall quicken and actuate that external performance. There were no such worshippers then as had no use of ordinances. Christ was not such, his disciples were not such, therefore it is a new gospel, which, if an angel should bring from heaven, ye ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... men of antiquity. We possess but a small portion of his works, but the fragments which have come down to us show peculiar merit. He sought to penetrate the human heart, and to reveal the secret motives which actuate the conduct of men. The style of Sallust is brilliant, but his art is always apparent; he is clear and lively, but rhetorical. Like Voltaire, who inaugurated modern history, Sallust thought more ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord

... nature for us, and authorise us to attribute wisdom and goodness to the maker of what surround us, should not also our mode of existence and perception authorise us to call what is hurtful to us disorder, and to attribute impotence, ignorance, or malice, to that Being which we would suppose to actuate nature. ...
— Answer to Dr. Priestley's Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever • Matthew Turner

... consider for a moment the possibility that other motives actuate me; that ceaseless regret, remorse, if you choose, for a terrible mistake, impels me to come here in the ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... drive): (1) agent, agitate, agile, act, actor, actuate, exact, enact, reaction, counteract, transact, mitigate, navigate, prodigal, assay, essay; (2) agenda, pedagogue, synagogue, actuary, redact, castigate, litigation, exigency, ambiguous, variegated, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... differentes, et independens les uns des autres." Bossu du Poem. Epiq. Liv. II. ch. 2. It is true indeed, that Tragedy is rather an address to the passions than to the imagination of mankind. To the latter however we must refer all those finer strokes of poetic painting, which actuate so forcibly the affections and the heart. We may, in short, easily conceive the importance of a warm imagination to the Dramatic Poet, by reflecting upon the coldness and indifference with which we peruse those pieces, which are not enlivened ...
— An Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients • John Ogilvie

... actuate the members should be the Kingdom of Heaven within the soul, which should be made the burden of all sermons, explaining how it is to ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott

... 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 ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James

... a corrective in the days of hired advocates, and a bench sometimes venal, and often with a tenure that made it dependent, but is needless now. No conceivable motive but justice could actuate our judges." ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy

... held out to us by philosophy and by religion. We feel, according to the ardent expression of the poet, that we shall not wholly die; but from hence we vainly and weakly argue, that the same scenes, the same passions, shall delight and actuate the disembodied spirit, which affected it while in its tenement of clay. Hence the popular belief, that the soul haunts the spot where the murdered body is interred; that its appearances are directed to ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott

... Henrich rendered him liable to be deceived by these false professions of his former rival; and he readily believed that Coubitant had, during his absence of so many years, forgotten and laid aside all those feelings of envy and jealousy that once appeared to fill his breast, and to actuate him to deeds of enmity towards the white stranger, whose father had slain his ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb

... convenient to leave in the background. The petitions were received by Humphrey Duke of Gloucester, a Gallio who cared for none of these things, whose cruel treatment of his own hapless wife shows that no chivalrous feeling could actuate him, and no desire to right a wronged woman influence his acts; but who probably was not desirous to blacken the memory of his father, and had no wish to disturb his brother's wife in the enjoyment of Kent's estates. So the answer returned to Joan's petition ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt

... sex-mating and which does surround a union that is pure and perfect. In this innate desire to share with the one and only possible mate, the intimate secrets of love, there is nothing of shame or apology—sentiments which alas, actuate the so-called "modest" man or ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad

... intention." He turned again to Rotherby. "Lord Ostermore was a father to you, which he never was to me—knew not that he was. The sentiments you so beautifully expressed to Mr. Templeton are the sentiments that actuate me now, though I shall make no attempt to express them. It is not that my heart stirs much where my Lord Ostermore is concerned. And yet, for the sake of the name that is mine now, I shall leave England as I came—Mr. Justin Caryll, neither ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini

... Motley is what Botta is to the historians of Southern Europe. The same grand principles actuate both writers; the same tendency to philosophical generalization is evident in the structure of their works, the same inflexible pursuit of a fixed and visible aim, the same enthusiastic love for freedom. But with Botta the poetical element, which is only secondary ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various

... the horror 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 of any holder, lay ...
— Boy Scouts in Mexico; or On Guard with Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson



Words linked to "Actuate" :   act, spark off, fall out, impress, go on, do, pass off, touch off, make, happen, pass, actuator, actuation, affect, hap, strike, come about, occur, cause, initiate, take place, pioneer



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