What's the difference between
and
Enter two words to compare and contrast their definitions, origins, and synonyms to better understand how those words are related.

Instigate vs Penetrate - What's the difference?

instigate | penetrate |

As verbs the difference between instigate and penetrate

is that instigate is to goad or urge forward; to set on; to provoke; to incite while penetrate is to enter into; to make way into the interior of; to pierce.

instigate

English

(Webster 1913)

Verb

(instigat)
  • To goad or urge forward; to set on; to provoke; to incite.
  • He hath only instigated his blackest agents to the very extent of their malignity. -Bp. Warburton.

    Usage notes

    Commonly used with reference to evil actions; as, to instigate one to a crime.

    Synonyms

    * (to goad or urge forward): animate, encourage, impel, incite, provoke, spur, stimulate, tempt, urge

    Antonyms

    * (to goad or urge forward): halt, prevent, stop

    Derived terms

    * instigation * instigator

    penetrate

    English

    (Penetration)

    Verb

    (penetrat)
  • To enter into; to make way into the interior of; to pierce.
  • Light penetrates darkness.
  • * {{quote-book, year=1879, title=The Telephone, the Microphone and the Phonograph
  • , author=Th Du Moncel, page=166, publisher=Harper , passage=He takes the prepared charcoal used by artists, brings it to a white heat, and suddenly plunges it in a bath of mercury, of which the globules instantly penetrate the pores of charcoal, and may be said to metallize it.}}
  • (figuratively) To achieve understanding of, despite some obstacle; to comprehend; to understand.
  • I could not penetrate Burke's opaque rhetoric.
  • * Ray
  • things which here were too subtile for us to penetrate
  • To affect profoundly through the senses or feelings; to move deeply.
  • to penetrate one's heart with pity
  • * M. Arnold
  • The translator of Homer should penetrate himself with a sense of the plainness and directness of Homer's style.
    (Shakespeare)
  • To infiltrate an enemy to gather intelligence.
  • To insert the penis into an opening, such as a vagina or anus. (rfex)
  • Derived terms

    * penetration * penetrable