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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. English speakers apparently took to the root hort, fiddling around with different prefixes to create other words similar in meaning to exhort. They came up with adhort (meaning the same as exhort) and dehort (a word similar to exhort and adhort but with a more specific meaning of "to dissuade"). Adhort all but vanished after the 17th century. Dehort had a slightly better run than adhort, but it is now considered archaic.

Examples of exhort in a Sentence

He exhorted his people to take back their land. She exhorted her listeners to support the proposition.

Recent Examples on the Web Following each harrowing miss leading up to his breakthrough trick at the 1999 X Games, the crowd and Hawk’s fellow competitors exhort him to try again. — Tom Krasovic, San Diego Union-Tribune, 5 Apr. 2022 In dueling cover pieces, former assistant secretary of defense Elbridge Colby argued the U.S. should defend Taiwan, while Professor Patrick Porter contended America’s proper role was to help and exhort Taiwan to defend itself. — Jim Geraghty, National Review, 4 Feb. 2022 Trump has endorsed Youngkin multiple times and called into a rally organized by a right-wing radio host this month to exhort the crowd to vote for him. — Arkansas Online, 25 Oct. 2021 Opinion shapers and policymakers would exhort moderate Muslims to do more to combat extremism. — New York Times, 4 Jan. 2022 Insiders right now would exhort that the tall truck early bird detection is no more than a flighty distractor from the real issues that need to be addressed for making the AI driving system readied to drive on our public roadways. — Lance Eliot, Forbes, 23 Dec. 2021 Trump has endorsed Youngkin multiple times and called into a rally organized by a right-wing radio host this month to exhort the crowd to vote for him. — Arkansas Online, 25 Oct. 2021 Trump has endorsed Youngkin multiple times and called into a rally organized by a right-wing radio host this month to exhort the crowd to vote for him. — Arkansas Online, 25 Oct. 2021 Trump has endorsed Youngkin multiple times and called into a rally organized by a right-wing radio host this month to exhort the crowd to vote for him. — Arkansas Online, 25 Oct. 2021 See More

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.