The words in this list all mean to stimulate vigorously into being or action. Incite means to spur to action, and may be applied to measures leading to salutary as well as deplorable results, to minor as well as profound changes: to incite others to greater effort by setting an example with one’s own conduct; to incite a riot by making inflammatory speeches. Stir up is more informal than incite and more often applies to less serious disturbances or to attitudes of mind: an unruly boy who kept stirring up trouble when the teacher’s back was turned; to stir up indignation. When applied to mental attitudes, as in the latter example, stir up is close to arouse . Arouse points specifically to awakening or opening one’s eyes to a certain situation or point of view, whereas the more emphatic rouse indicates a call to action or to vigorous opinion that is likely to lead to action.

• His speech roused the audience to such a pitch of fury that the police were forced to escort him away hastily for his own safety; The exhibition of poor sportsmanship aroused a sense of disgust and humiliation in all who witnessed it.

Instigate and foment usually suggest the setting in motion of events that in some way threaten or upset the status quo. They will therefore convey a negative or unfavourable connotation to the extent that one deplores violent change. Instigate suggests an insidious design to bring about some drastic action: to instigate an assassination; to instigate a plot to seize control of a government. Foment , which is derived from a Latin verb meaning to keep warm, suggests a deliberate attempt to keep people or conditions agitated in order to bring about radical change, or simply to promote dissension and discord: to foment rebellion; to foment mutiny. Whereas instigate emphasizes the act of initiating the design, foment stresses keeping it alive – fanning the fire, so to speak. Instigate , in addition, does have a wider range of use and can point to any design, even one of noble motive, whereas foment is used most often of underhanded designs aiming at radical change: to instigate a change in the appointments system with the object of increasing the efficiency of the administration; to foment fear and discord.

Provoke , as here considered, can be used, like instigate , to point to a variety of results, but it does not necessarily or even commonly imply conscious design. It may on the contrary imply spontaneous reaction: The slur provoked a sharp retort. Like arouse and stir up , provoke may also be used of the stimulation of a particular mental attitude: The arbitrary police action provoked (or aroused or stirred up ) a public outcry for an investigation. Provoke emphasizes more strongly than the other words of this group a direct and immediate cause-and-effect connection between the stimulus and response – the act that incites and the result: The outbreak of war provoked a call for meeting of the U.N. Security Council.

Exhort means to urge earnestly; it suggests an attempt to persuade someone to take a course or action by emphatic and even passionate argument or by appealing to his sympathy or conscience: The backbencher exhorted his colleagues to vote against the motion to censure him for his prolonged absences from the House. Exhort often implies a degree of desperation, and can be close in meaning to beg or plead with, only more formal in tone: exhorting his fellow students not to expose his cheating in the examination.