agitator

[Eng. agitate; -or. In Fr. agitateur; Port. agitador; Ital. agitatore; all from Lat. agitator.] 1. One who agitates; one who finds his happine , and attempts to make a livelihood, by stirring up excitement or commotion. an indefatigable agitator and conspirator." -Macaulay: Hist . Eng . , ch. xvii. 2. Eng. Hist. As a corruption of adjutators: Officers appointed by the English army in 1647 to attend to its interests during the revolutionary period then in progre . Clarendon calls them agitators ; Whitlock, agents or agitators ; Ludlow, at first agitators , then by their proper appellation, adjutators . "The common soldiers made choice of three or four of each regiment, most corporals or sergeants, few or none above the degree of an ensign, who were called agitators, and were to be as a House of Commons to the council of officers."-Clarendon: Hist. of the Rebellion, bk. x. IMG:content-0282.png:[blocks in formation]