excited
Americanadjective
-
stirred emotionally; agitated.
An excited crowd awaited the arrival of the famed rock group.
- Synonyms:
- impassioned, perturbed, stormy, ruffled
-
stimulated to activity; brisk.
an excited buying and selling of stocks.
- Synonyms:
- enthusiastic, active, eager
adjective
-
emotionally aroused, esp to pleasure or agitation
-
characterized by excitement
an excited dance
-
sexually aroused
-
(of an atom, molecule, etc) occupying an energy level above the ground state
Usage
Spelling tips for excited The word excited is hard to spell because people often want to skip the c (exited) or substitute it with an s (exsited), neither of which are correct. How to spell excited: When you're excited about something you exclaim "oh boy!". This phrase can help you remember that like exclaim, excited begins exc-.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of excited
Compare meaning
How does excited compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:
Explanation
If you're excited you're enthusiastic and animated, like a kid in a candy store. Or a kid on their birthday. Or a kid on the last day of school. Meaning more than just "wildly happy," excited describes all sorts of excessive emotions (and not always the good ones). If you're excited you might be agitated, nervous, anxious, or worked up about something. Skip a little further out on the excited spectrum and you're verging on a loss of control: You're delirious, frantic, mad, or unrestrained. Less like a kid in a candy store than a kid on his tenth cup of espresso.
Vocabulary lists containing excited
Nuclear Processes
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Physics - High School
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We're Excited! Synonyms for "Eager"
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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.
Vesuvius in AD 79, he wasn’t just horrified, he was mesmerized, even excited; amid all that death it felt like the past was alive.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 21, 2026
“I am excited to get to work supporting the city’s long-term fiscal sustainability, preparing for sea level rise, and building a strong organization that delivers exceptional service.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 20, 2026
This frames the conversation around what you’re excited to do rather than what you’re trying to leave behind.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 20, 2026
One patient came to me having tracked every metric imaginable—her glucose levels, her heart-rate variability, her biological age—and yet she couldn’t tell me the last time she had been genuinely excited about something.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 18, 2026
Nim felt excited and brave and a tiny bit afraid, but the second chapter of Mountain Madness was even more exciting than the first, and she thought about the hero till she went to sleep.
From "Nim’s Island" by Wendy Orr
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.
