instigatum

Instigatum is the neuter singular perfect passive participle of the Latin verb instigare, meaning incited, urged on, or stirred up. As a participle, instigatum agrees in gender and number with the noun it modifies; masculine is instigatus, feminine instigata, neuter instigatum. In Latin, participles frequently function as adjectives or as components of compound tenses and voices; instigatum can occur in phrases describing actions that have been instigated or provocations that have been set in motion. The related noun instigatio, from the same verb, means incitement, stimulation, or instigation, and is common in legal, philosophical, and rhetorical texts.

The English word instigate derives from instigare, via Old French and Middle English, and while it shares its root with instigatum, the neuter participle is rarely used in English except in scholarly Latin quotations. In Latin literature, instigatum may appear in epitomes or scholia as a descriptive form for actions that were incited, provoked, or stirred up by someone or something. The term is mainly of interest to students of Latin morphology and philology, as well as translators who encounter Latin texts that employ participles in a substantival or attributive role.

Notes for readers: understanding instigatum requires awareness of Latin participle agreement and the distinction between the passive participle (instigatus) used as an adjective for masculine subjects and the neuter form (instigatum), which aligns with neuter nouns or neuter-substantive uses. The concept generally aligns with modern notions of incitement or provocation in historical contexts.