exhort

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English exhorten, also exorten,^[2][3] borrowed from Old French exhorter^{[2][3][4][5][6]} and directly borrowed from Latin exhortor (“to encourage, urge strongly”).^[7][8][9][2] The Anglo-Norman exorter is recorded from 1396.^[10] The Latin verb is formed from ex- (“thoroughly”), an intensive prefix,^[7][8][6] and hortor (“to encourage, urge”), the source of hortatory,^[7][11][12] which is itself an intensive of horior (“to urge, incite”).^[11] Etymonline and the American Heritage Dictionary refer it to Proto-Indo-European *gher- (“to like, want”),^[11][8] and Weekley and Merriam-Webster Unabridged connect it with yearn.^[13][14] Middle English also had enhorten in the same sense.^[2][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

To admonish earnestly, to urge to good conduct: about 1425, in the Apology for Lollard Doctrines, which may date from about 1400,^[7] and about the same time in the Founding of St Bartholomew's, where a priest "prayd hym and exhortid hym" to give back money.^[2] Etymonline and Barnhart date the verb to about 1400,^[11][3] and Hoad and Collins to the 14th century.^[4][15]

Semantic evolution

In the 15th century the verb could be a formal request as well as moral urging: a Privy Council record of 1427 has "desiring, exhorting and requiring" payment from a man.^[2] Barnhart notes that the -h- of the Latin spelling appears about 1425 but was not established until the 1550s.^[3] Caxton (1490) has it with an infinitive, More (1529) with to and a course of action,^[7] and it could also take a thing as its object, "to recommend earnestly", from about 1500.^[7] A noun exhort, an exhortation, ran alongside from about 1475 to 1829,^[7] with Chapman's Iliad (1611) among its users and a survival in Scots in 1873.^[16] Johnson (1755) defined the verb as inciting by words to "any good action", with 1 Thessalonians and the Common Prayer among his examples.^[17] Merriam-Webster Unabridged illustrates the intransitive sense, to preach, with ministers and converts praying and exhorting about a camp.^[14] The OED notes that the word is no longer colloquial.^[7] An exhorter was a person appointed in some churches to give religious exhortation under a minister, from the mid-16th century.^[5]

Timeline

• c. 1425 – verb, to urge earnestly to good conduct.^[7][2]
• c. 1475 – noun, an exhortation (obsolete after 1829).^[7]
• 1490 – verb, with an infinitive, to urge to do something.^[7]
• c. 1500 – verb, with a thing as object, to recommend earnestly.^[7]
• 1529 – verb, with to and an action, to urge towards a course.^[7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To urge someone strongly by argument or appeal, to admonish earnestly: The coach exhorted her players to keep running.^{[8][14][7][15]}
2. To make an urgent appeal; to preach.^[14][8]
3. (archaic) To recommend something earnestly; to insist on it.^[7][5]

Noun

1. (obsolete, c. 1475–1829) An exhortation.^[7][14][5]

Word family

• exhorter
• exhortingly
• unexhorted

Related words

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

Usage notes

The OED marks the verb as no longer in colloquial use.^[7]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d e The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
11. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
12. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
13. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
14. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
15. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
16. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
17. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.