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If you want to add a little oomph to your urge in speech or writing—and formal oomph at that—we exhort you to try using exhort as a synonym instead. Arriving in the 15th century from the Anglo-French word exorter, exhort traces back further to the Latin verb hortari, meaning “to incite to action, urge on, or encourage.” Latin users added the prefix ex- to hortari to intensify it; in essence, exhortari is a succinct way of saying “to really, really urge.” The Latin words adhortari (its meaning similar to that of exhortari) and dehortari (“to dissuade”) also found their way into English as adhort and dehort, respectively, but neither of these remains in current use.
Synonyms
Examples of exhort in a Sentence
Peter Skerry, National Review, 11 Dec. 2024
In its opening scene, from George Harrison’s 1971 Concert for Bangladesh, Preston starts singing the warmly exhorting gospel song that gives the film its name.
—David Browne, Rolling Stone, 22 Nov. 2024
On cue, Kittle rose from the bench and began exhorting the crowd as well as his teammates.
—Jerry McDonald, The Mercury News, 28 Oct. 2024
On Tuesday, Harris is scheduled to speak at the Ellipse in Washington, the site where Trump exhorted a crowd of supporters on Jan. 6, 2021, to march on the Capitol in an effort to prevent Congress from certifying Biden’s victory.
—David Lauter, Los Angeles Times, 26 Oct. 2024
See all Example Sentences for exhort 
Dictionary Entries Near exhort
Cite this Entry
“Exhort.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/exhort. Accessed 21 Dec. 2024.
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