What is "actuate"

Usage examples of "actuate".

I will add with reference to myself, that these transactions show that, so far from being actuated by those motives of personal aggrandizement, with which I have been charged by persons of high station in another place, my object was, that others should occupy a post of honour, and that for myself I was willing to serve in any capacity, or without any official capacity, so as to enable the crown to carry on the government.

Actuated by a far different spirit, Basiliscus, whose station was the most remote from danger, disgracefully fled in the beginning of the engagement, returned to Constantinople with the loss of more than half of his fleet and army, and sheltered his guilty head in the sanctuary of St.

It is very certain that if I had not been actuated by curiosity I should not have gone one step further, but I wanted to see the countenance of a nun who had offered to come to Venice to sup with me.

I could not believe that my sentence had been pronounced and confirmed, without my being told of it, or of the reasons by which my judges had been actuated.

The sowars, actuated by a common impulse, rose in their stirrups and began to cheer.

As arbiter of Chinatown, Yat Soon was well acquainted with the devious motives that actuated those within the boundaries of the Oriental district.

Herr Settembrini was pleased to see his concern for the enlightenment of the people, but his pleasure was marred by the fear that what really actuated Herr Naphta was an instinctive tendency to involve both people and world in analphabetic darkness.

The push rod was screwed into a miniature piston head which, in turn, actuated a trio of switches.

Yet the members of the grand confederacy were differently actuated by disagreeing motives, which, in the sequel, operated for the preservation of his Prussian majesty, by preventing the full exertion of their united strength.

While the council, as practical men of business, would be bound to promote the prosperity of their shareholders, he was sure they would be actuated by statesmanlike views.

Fresh fuel was continually thrown in by obscure authors of pamphlets and newspapers, who stigmatized and insulted with such virulent perseverance, that no one would have imagined they were actuated by personal motives, not retained by mercenary booksellers, against that unfortunate nobleman.

Diocletian was a man of sense, who, in the course of private as well as public life, had formed a just estimate both of himself and of mankind: nor is it easy to conceive, that in substituting the manners of Persia to those of Rome, he was seriously actuated by so mean a principle as that of vanity.

H-bombs, and botulinus toxin, and military bacteria, and small but crucial objects like the remote-controlled switches which actuate the firing-circuits in missiles.

It was sometimes faintly insinuated, and sometimes boldly asserted, that the same bloody sacrifices, and the same incestuous festivals, which were so falsely ascribed to the orthodox believers, were in reality celebrated by the Marcionites, by the Carpocratians, and by several other sects of the Gnostics, who, notwithstanding they might deviate into the paths of heresy, were still actuated by the sentiments of men, and still governed by the precepts of Christianity.

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.