These words refer to the act of inciting or taunting someone of something. Spur can refer literally to horseback riding, indicating an action of urging a horse forwards by jabbing it in the sides with one’s heels or with devices worn on the heels for this purpose: He spurred his horse forward. In other uses, the word can similarly point to anything that jogs or jolts awareness or that stimulates interest: a speech designed to spur the nation on towards its goal of a just peace. Unlike other words here, the word can be used with no implication of a negative or punitive act, often pointing instead to a pleasant arousal of eagerness or desire that results in speeded-up action: a lively plot that will spur the most lethargic reader to forge ahead to the book’s completion.

Goad referred originally to a spear or pike used to drive animals forwards. Unlike spur , goad seldom leaves completely behind this notion of a harassing action that forces someone or something to move forwards: editorials that attempted to goad the government on to fulfilling its election promises. Sometimes the word can indicate a mere penchant for trouble-making without implying any constructive effort at reform: She constantly goaded her son about the largely imaginary failings of his wife. Goad can indicate a being bothered and distracted by the pressure of external forces: people goaded by the heat; goaded by the demands of his job into a nervous breakdown.

Sting particularly suggests chagrin because of some external rebuff or because of the worrying action of one’s conscience.

• He was stung by his former friend’s refusal to greet him in the street; Her one unfaithfulness to her husband stung her every time she returned to it in retrospect.

Needle also can refer to the workings of conscience: constantly needled by the growing conviction that he had failed his children. More often, however, the word refers to an insistent and possibly insidious wearing away by one person of another persons?self-esteem or vanity, usually with little attempt at constructive criticism: a playwright who loved to needle his middle-class audiences about their values as much as his audiences loved to be needled about such things. Occasionally, a serious impulse at reform can be indicated: a gadfly who needled the government about its failures in decentralization until it was goaded into re-examining its whole programme.

Nag stresses the repetitious insistence with which someone carries on trivial criticisms of someone else. The word typically suggests a wife who berates her husband for failings, large or small, but the word can apply more widely: a nagging boss; leaders who know how to get results without constant nagging . The word can apply also to any moderate but annoying persistence: a nagging pain in his back.