exhort

English

WOTD – 9 March 2016

Etymology

From Middle English exorten, from Old French exhorter, from Latin exhortārī (“to encourage”),^[1] from ex- (“out of, from”) +‎ hortārī (“to incite, spur”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ɛɡˈzɔːt/, /ɪɡˈzɔːt/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ɛɡˈzɔɹt/, /ɪɡˈzɔɹt/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɔː(ɹ)t
• Hyphenation: ex‧hort

Verb

exhort (third-person singular simple present exhorts, present participle exhorting, simple past and past participle exhorted)

1. To urge; to advise earnestly.

   Synonyms: counsel, implore; see also Thesaurus:advise

   Antonyms: dehort (rare or obsolete), dissuade

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Acts 2:40:

     And with many other words did hee testifie and exhort, saying, Saue your selues from this vntoward generation.

   • 1873, John Campbell Shairp, Peter Guthrie Tait, Anthony Adams-Reilly, quoting James David Forbes, Letter to Anthony Adams-Reilly, Esq., c. 1860, quoted in Life and Letters of James David Forbes, F.R.S., London: Macmillan and Co., page 377:

     And now, my dear sir, let me exhort you to take care of yourself.

   • 1922 February, James Joyce, “[Episode 12: Cyclops]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC, part II [Odyssey], page 289:

     Asked if he had any message for the living he exhorted all who were still at the wrong side of Maya to acknowledge the true path for it was reported in devanic circles that Mars and Jupiter were out for mischief on the eastern angle where the ram has power.

   • 1952 February, H. C. Casserley, “Permanent Wayfarings”, in Railway Magazine, page 78:

     Finally, I would again exhort all railway photographers to concentrate on the older and disappearing types of engines, many of which will not be with us much longer.

   • 2007 July 21, J. K. Rowling [pseudonym; Joanne Rowling], Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter; 7), London: Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN:

     Perhaps because he was determined to make up for having walked out on them, perhaps because Harry’s descent into listlessness galvanized his dormant leadership qualities, Ron was the one now encouraging and exhorting the other two into action.

   • 2019 May 12, Alex McLevy, “Westeros faces a disastrous final battle on the penultimate Game of Thrones (newbies)”, in The A.V. Club‎, archived from the original on 15 May 2019:

     Jon, watching the chaos unfold, is in shock. A Stark in spirit if not blood, he comes to the aid of a woman before she’s raped by a fellow soldier, but mostly, he’s struck dumb by the needless violence playing out around him, eventually able to do little more than exhort everyone to fall back and flee the city.

Conjugation

infinitive	(to) exhort
	present tense	past tense
1st-person singular	exhort	exhorted
2nd-person singular	exhort, exhortest†	exhorted, exhortedst†
3rd-person singular	exhorts, exhorteth†	exhorted
plural	exhort
subjunctive	exhort	exhorted
imperative	exhort	—
participles	exhorting	exhorted

Conjugation of exhort

^†Archaic or obsolete.

Derived terms

• exhorter
• exhortingly
• unexhorted

 

Related terms

• dehort
• exhortation
• exhortative
• exhortatory
• hortative
• hortatory

 

Translations

to urge

Bulgarian: увещавам (bg) (uveštavam) Dutch: aansporen (nl), aanporren (nl), manen (nl) Esperanto: admoni Finnish: kehottaa (fi) French: exhorter (fr) German: ermahnen (de), anhalten (de), bedrängen (de), verlangen (de), anspornen (de), drängen (de) Latin: hortor (la), exhortor Maori: āki, hotahota, akiaki Polish: namawiać (pl), zachęcać (pl) Portuguese: exortar (pt) Russian: увещевать (ru) (uveščevatʹ) Serbo-Croatian: подстаћи Spanish: exhortar (es) Swedish: förmana (sv), uppmana (sv), förorda (sv) Turkish: ikaz etmek (tr), uyarmak (tr)

References

1. “exhō̆rten, v.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.