Word of the Day Archive
Sunday December 5, 2004
exhort \ig-ZORT\ , transitive verb:
1. To incite by words or advice; to urge strongly; hence, to advise, warn, or caution.
intransitive verb:
1. To make urgent appeal; to give warning or advice.
He was constantly reminding us of our failures and exhorting us to do, and to be, better.
-- Ronald Steel, In Love With Night
How many children are exhorted to taste a new food (which they have decided is bad on sight) and even after a taste continue to protest?
-- Richard Pillsbury, No Foreign Food
Be doubly cautious in business generally, he exhorted his brothers.
-- Niall Ferguson, The House of Rothschild: Money's Prophets, 1798-1848
Exhort derives from Latin exhortari, "to encourage strongly," from ex-, intensive prefix + hortari, "to incite, to encourage."
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for exhort
