A.Word.A.Day --exhort

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Sep 23, 2024

This week’s theme
Words differing by a letter

This week’s words
exhort
extort
nemorous
memorous
androgynic

Illustration: Anu Garg + AI

Previous week’s theme
Words made with combining forms

A.Word.A.Day

with Anu Garg

This week’s words might look like a simple assortment of adjectives, verbs, and nouns, but we’re going to add a twist. We’re going to change a letter in each word and see what happens. Think of this as the linguistic version of CRISPR, except no need for high-tech tools.

Here’s an example: Change one letter of the word adorable and you could turn it into odorable. Is someone odorable adorable? It depends. The word odorable simply means “able to be smelled”. Maybe it’s a pleasant smell, maybe not.

Over the next two weeks, we’ll highlight five such word pairs.

Got any word pairs of your own that fit this theme? Share below or email us at words@wordsmith.org. Include your location (city, state).

exhort

PRONUNCIATION:

(ig-ZORT)

MEANING:

verb tr., intr.: To urge, persuade, advise, etc. earnestly.
noun: The act or an instance of earnest urging, advising, etc.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin ex- (out) + hortari (to urge). Ultimately from the Indo-European root gher- (to like or want), which also gave us yearn, charisma, greedy, and hortatory. Earliest documented use: 1475.

USAGE:

“Last year British government ministers exhorted workers to get back to the office.”
The Pyjama Revolution; The Economist (London, UK); Oct 30, 2021.

“We have written an exhort to the criminal court of the city of Banes to depose the occupants of the car.”
Dr. Carlos J. Bringuier; Crime Without Punishment; AuthorHouse; 2013.

See more usage examples of exhort in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

Very few established institutions, governments, and constitutions ... are ever destroyed by their enemies until they have been corrupted and weakened by their friends. -Walter Lippmann, journalist (23 Sep 1889-1974)

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