/ əˈdʒendə; NAmE / noun
a list of items to be discussed at a meeting :
The next item on the agenda is the publicity budget.
For the government, education is now at the top of the agenda (= most important) .
In our company, quality is high on the agenda .
Newspapers have been accused of trying to set the agenda for the government (= decide what is important) .
—see also hidden agenda
••
WHICH WORD
agenda / diary / schedule / timetable
A book with a space for each day where you write down things that you have to do in the future is called a diary or a datebook ( NAmE ) (not an agenda ). You may also have a calendar on your desk or hanging up in your room, where you write down your appointments. A diary or a journal is also the record that some people keep of what has happened during the day:
the Diary of Anne Frank
.
In BrE your schedule is a plan that lists all the work that you have to do and when you must do each thing and a timetable is a list showing the fixed times at which events will happen: a
bus / train timetable
. In NAmE these are both called a schedule .
••
WORD ORIGIN
early 17th cent. (in the sense things to be done ): from Latin , neuter plural of agendum , gerundive of agere do.