Elicited

Elicited is the past participle of the verb elicit. It is used as an adjective or in passive constructions to describe something that has been drawn out, brought forth, or obtained in response to a prompting, stimulus, or question. The core idea is that the thing being described did not arise spontaneously but was elicited through an action or context, such as a question, a test, or an experiment.

In everyday language, you might hear that a teacher elicited multiple solutions from students, or that a witness’s testimony was elicited through targeted questioning. In professional and academic contexts, elicitation refers to systematic methods for drawing out information, language, or behavior from participants. Elicited data contrast with information that is volunteered without prompting, and researchers often design tasks or prompts to obtain specific results while maintaining ethical standards.

Fields that commonly use elicitation include psychology, linguistics, education, and social science research. In psychology, stimuli are used to elicit responses; in linguistics, elicitation methods gather language samples through interviews, translation tasks, or structured prompts; and in education, teachers may use questioning strategies to elicit known concepts or problem-solving steps. The term derives from Latin elicere, meaning to draw forth. Related terms include evoke, draw out, extract, and prompt, with elicitation highlighting a deliberate effort to obtain latent or non-obvious information.