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:
As he starts his term as Fed chair, Warsh can’t count on the support of his fellow governors for his agenda, Bianco said.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 25, 2026
Bylaws empower the chair to set the board’s agenda and pick a vice chair, though the board—which is largely appointed by the mayor—can expand those powers.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 23, 2026
These seniors are former high-level workers in government and scientific fields who have an excellent understanding of the politics driving the administration’s agenda, and they are organizing to protest it.
From Salon ● Jul. 23, 2026
I suppose he could argue that Sarwar is an ally on his agenda to rewire how British politics works and can now agitate for change from within.
From BBC ● Jul. 22, 2026
His avowed agenda was to give the Germans a sense of their historical destiny through the arts.
From "The Story of Music" by Howard Goodall
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
It is worthwhile to know what their agendas are.
From Slate ● May 7, 2026
It was abandoned after Napoleon’s fall in 1814 and then completed, very slowly, by a series of architects under three different monarchs and several competing agendas.
From Salon ● May 3, 2026
Like James Gandolfini in “Loop,” or Daniel Kaluuya in “Get Out,” or Eddie Albert in “Green Acres,” Mr. Bonneville is playing the only bona-fide sane adult in a crowd beset by mental malfunction, i.e, agendas.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 30, 2026
Three overlapping reasons appear to have converged in Adams’s mind and provided decisive direction to a foreign policy that, until then, had been vacillating between the incompatible agendas of the Federalists and the Republicans.
From "Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation" by Joseph J. Ellis
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
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
Their main agendum was to pronounce their complete independence of men.
From Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 10, 1920 by Seaman, Owen, Sir
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 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
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.
