as in to provoke
to bring something (volatile or intense) into being
couldn't stir up any interest in a Saturday morning outing to the art museum
Synonyms & Similar Words
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
Example Sentences
Recent Examples of Synonyms for stir (up)
Verb
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Christopher Nolan has cemented his status as one of our most consistently original and thought-provoking directors.—
ArsTechnica,
ArsTechnica,
6 Apr. 2026 -
But traumatic episodes like the Notre-Dame fire generally provoke returns to the safe and familiar, not experimentation.—
David A. Bell,
The New York Review of Books,
4 Apr. 2026
Verb
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The school also received a Rotary Club grant, and its PTA also raised a significant amount of money.—
Molly McCrea,
CBS News,
3 Apr. 2026
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But the arc — first raising expectations for a big reveal, then declaring there was nothing to see, and ultimately a forced, flawed document dump — was a stubbornly problematic storyline that ran through her time as attorney general.—
ABC News,
ABC News,
3 Apr. 2026
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Cite this Entry
“Stir (up).” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/stir%20%28up%29. Accessed 7 Apr. 2026.
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