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He exhorted his people to take back their land.
She exhorted her listeners to support the proposition.
These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'exhort.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Exhort is a 15th-century coinage. It derives from the Latin verb hortari, meaning "to incite," and it often implies the ardent urging or admonishing of an orator or preacher. People in the 16th century apparently liked the root -hort, but they couldn't resist fiddling around with different prefixes to create other words similar in meaning to "exhort." They came up with adhort and dehort. Adhort was short-lived and became obsolete after the 17th century. Dehort was similar to exhort and adhort but with a more specific meaning of "to dissuade." It had a better run than adhort, being used well into the late 19th century, but it is now considered archaic.
First Known Use: 15th century
in the meaning defined at transitive sense
See Words from the same year: to try to influence (someone) by words or advice : to strongly urge (someone) to do something
See words that rhyme with exhort Thesaurus: All synonyms and antonyms for exhort Spanish Central: Translation of exhort Nglish: Translation of exhort for Spanish speakers Britannica English: Translation of exhort for Arabic speakers
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