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:
Mr. Warsh is pressing ahead with an aggressive reform agenda, as he made clear on Friday.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 28, 2026
The president did not simply abandon his tariff agenda, though, instead identifying new ways to tariff under existing federal trade law.
From Slate ● Aug. 27, 2026
"Things have been moving very rapidly with respect to geopolitical challenges," Finance Minister Daði Már Kristófersson tells the BBC, pushing Iceland's place in the world "up the agenda".
From BBC ● Aug. 26, 2026
Norman, a veteran conservative and member of the hardline House Freedom Caucus, supports much of Trump's agenda but has occasionally defied Republican leaders and backed Nikki Haley rather than Trump in the 2024 presidential primary.
From Barron's ● Aug. 25, 2026
Thanks to Alston, the issue was put on the agenda for the regular August tenants' meeting.
From "The Best of Enemies" by Osha Gray Davidson
The agendas also contained a distorted periodic table, unreadable phases of the moon and other garbled educational material that parents suspect may have been created using artificial intelligence.
From Salon ● Aug. 15, 2026
With fiduciary responsibility, Mr. Reynolds says, “I think a lot of hidden agendas go away. Advice has to be in the client’s best interest, not motivated by a desire to run up the bill.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 2, 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
But the alliance soon unravelled as they pursued divergent political agendas.
From BBC ● May 11, 2026
I say, throwing my Chicago clothes into the laundry hamper while scouting for new hiding places for my agendas and notebooks.
From "Saints and Misfits" by S.K. Ali
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
To this perfection it is, therefore, bound, as the fundamental science, to attain, and to it the maxim may justly be applied: Nil actum reputans, si quid superesset agendum.
From The Critique of Pure Reason by John Miller Dow Meiklejohn
The Accusative of the Gerund is used only with Prepositions, chiefly ad and in to denote purpose; as,— homō ad agendum nātus est, man is born for action.
From New Latin Grammar by Charles E. (Charles Edwin) Bennett
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.
