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Instigate vs Insist - What's the difference?

instigate | insist |

As verbs the difference between instigate and insist

is that instigate is to goad or urge forward; to set on; to provoke; to incite while insist is to hold up a claim emphatically.

instigate

English

(Webster 1913)

Verb

(instigat)
  • To goad or urge forward; to set on; to provoke; to incite.
  • He hath only instigated his blackest agents to the very extent of their malignity. -Bp. Warburton.

    Usage notes

    Commonly used with reference to evil actions; as, to instigate one to a crime.

    Synonyms

    * (to goad or urge forward): animate, encourage, impel, incite, provoke, spur, stimulate, tempt, urge

    Antonyms

    * (to goad or urge forward): halt, prevent, stop

    Derived terms

    * instigation * instigator

    insist

    English

    Alternative forms

    * ensist

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To hold up a claim emphatically.
  • (I am defending her; see a similar example in the context below for comparison.)
  • *
  • , title=(The Celebrity), chapter=5 , passage=But Miss Thorn relieved the situation by laughing aloud,
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-22, volume=407, issue=8841, page=70, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= Engineers of a different kind , passage=Private-equity nabobs bristle at being dubbed mere financiers. Piling debt onto companies’ balance-sheets is only a small part of what leveraged buy-outs are about, they insist . Improving the workings of the businesses they take over is just as core to their calling, if not more so. Much of their pleading is public-relations bluster.}}
  • To demand continually that something happen or be done.
  • To stand (on); to rest (upon); to lean (upon).
  • * 1709 , Venturus Mandey, Synopsis Mathematica Universalis
  • Angles likewise which insist on the Diameter, are all Right Angles.