agenda
Americannoun
noun
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Also called: agendum. (functioning as singular) a schedule or list of items to be attended to
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Also called: agendas, agendums. (functioning as plural) matters to be attended to, as at a meeting of a committee
Usage
Agenda, “things to be done,” is the plural of the Latin gerund agendum and is used today in the sense “a plan or list of matters to be acted upon.” In that sense it is treated as a singular noun; its plural is usually agendas: The agenda is ready for distribution. The agendas of last year's meetings are printed in the official minutes. The singular agendum, meaning “an item on an agenda,” is rare.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of agenda
First recorded in 1745–55; from Latin, plural of agendum “that which is to be done,” gerund of agere “to do, drive”; the plural originally carried a collective sense denoting the various items to be transacted
Explanation
An agenda is a list of things to do. If you're going to attend a meeting with a long agenda, you'll want to take your coffee mug along. The word agenda is the plural for of the Latin word agendum, which literally means "something to be done." The noun retains this meaning because an agenda is a plan — organized by time — of events or things to do. You might have a meeting, a lunch date, and a doctor's appointment on your agenda for the day. And when you run for office, you better have a political agenda — or a plan for what you want to get done if elected.
Vocabulary lists containing agenda
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I've Been to the Mountaintop" (1968)
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President Trump's Second State of the Union Address (2019)
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Legend
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The result was a roughly five-hour gap in the summit agenda, a long stretch of downtime during a visit that lasted barely two days.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 3, 2026
Ministers are scheduled to discuss how to improve returns of people with no right to stay in the bloc through "enhanced cooperation" with "priority" third countries, according to the meeting agenda.
From Barron's ● Oct. 1, 2026
This was because his agenda was too tight, they said.
From BBC ● Sep. 24, 2026
AI was said to be on the agenda, and Mr. Xi is surely pressing Mr. Trump on Taiwan.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 24, 2026
He could not believe that a dignified body of sober-minded legislators were allowing these “shaking Quakers” with their throbbing consciences to control the national agenda.
From "Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation" by Joseph J. Ellis
The bizarre geography lesson appeared in student agendas distributed at Farnsley Middle School, part of Jefferson County Public Schools in Louisville.
From Salon ● Aug. 15, 2026
Ricci went viral for taking viewers behind the closed doors of his family’s quarterly money meetings, all the way down to agendas.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 15, 2026
Whatever agendas they may personally espouse, these writers are too alert to the messiness of history and human nature to be rigidly ideological in their work.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 29, 2026
Describing the closure as "cruel", Varney said the products the company sells are a luxury item that falls off consumers' agendas once cost pressures strike, and people stick to the essentials.
From BBC ● May 13, 2026
I saw everyone else going on with their own agendas while Mrs. Cadaver was frantically trying to keep her husband and her mother alive.
From "Walk Two Moons" by Sharon Creech
But a principal agendum of the conference is the limitation of submarines.
From Time Magazine Archive
Principal agendum of the pages standing at the rostrum steps was to lift the train of each ascending delegate with combined dexterity, good timing and discretion.
From Time Magazine Archive
The next most important agendum was the division of reparations so far received, a matter complicated by profits derived from the Ruhr occupation, seizures made, deliveries in kind received, etc.
From Time Magazine Archive
Others are finer still Caesar's energy is rivalled by the line— "Nil actum credens dum quid superesset agendum."
From The History of Roman Literature From the earliest period to the death of Marcus Aurelius by Charles Thomas Cruttwell
The first is, that in his enterprises and engagements he would have thought nothing done, till all had been done that was possible:- Nil actum reputans, si quid superesset agendum.
From Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit and Some Miscellaneous Pieces by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
