agitate

They are notorious goons, despised virtually everywhere for their ability to agitate, aggrieve and annoy.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 14, 2026

Little things are starting to agitate me every day.

From BBC ● Dec. 16, 2025

Some food and beverage workers, many who worked alongside the unionized hospitality workers employed by Hotel Figueroa, started to agitate to also form a union and gain similar rights.

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 5, 2024

It appeared to agitate Cannon, who questioned the prosecution about why it was being brought up for the first time at the hearing.

From Salon ● Oct. 13, 2023

“We are serving tea, sir, though calling it chocolate so as not to agitate the sensibilities of Patriots.”

From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume I: The Pox Party" by M.T. Anderson

And this is kind of a shame, because the story agitates the brain far more than it does the stomach.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 9, 2025

Conversely, when researchers injected the rats with a substance that agitates the immune system, the inflammatory cytokine levels rapidly shot up.

From Science Daily ● Dec. 5, 2024

Tinseltown, it seems, is in the midst of an AI boom — even as its creative class agitates for limits on how that technology gets deployed.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 2, 2023

According to the advocacy group DogsBite, which agitates for municipalities to ban "dangerous breeds," more than 900 cities in the United States currently have laws on the books banning pit bulls.

From Salon ● Jul. 4, 2021

And then something else happens that agitates Helmuth, that makes him all the more determined to wake up the people of Germany.

From "The Boy Who Dared" by Susan Campbell Bartoletti

Paramount and other groups, including cinema chain owners and some Hollywood unions, have agitated for a settlement to curtail months of uncertainty over whether the deal will go through.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 19, 2026

Algal spores may have turned the water green in places across Northern Ireland, but strong winds and heavy rain have kept surfaces too agitated for the formation of the very large-scale mats we've seen before.

From BBC ● Jul. 26, 2026

While Starmer floundered in the polls, Burnham agitated for change.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 20, 2026

They know their cognition will continue to fade, and they might live for years in an agitated, delusional state where they’ll need round-the-clock care from people they don’t recognize.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 20, 2026

August is agitated and desperate, moving from window to window, hauling himself up by his fingertips, weeping, oozing contrition.

From "Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen

Wilson has been agitating for a board overhaul, and The Wall Street Journal has reported that Elliott was looking to help the retailer find a new leader.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 1, 2026

Landlocked Ethiopia, home to around 130 million people and one of Africa’s strongest economies, has been agitating for sea access.

From Barron's ● Apr. 7, 2026

Buck Turgidson, one of the film’s most memorable characters, while agitating the president in the war room for a first strike against the Soviet Union.

From Salon ● Mar. 10, 2026

Conversations about his goals implicitly involved an assessment of his prospects, which was agitating.

From Slate ● Jul. 23, 2025

His firm already had a full roster of work, so much, he wrote, that “we are always personally under an agitating pressure and cloud of anxiety.”

From "The Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson