Exhorting

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. The act of urging or strongly encouraging someone to do something important or beneficial
2. A forceful appeal or recommendation made to persuade someone to take action or improve behavior
3. The process of strongly motivating or persuading someone to act in a certain way through earnest advice

Etymology: "Exhorting" is the present participle of "exhort," and the verb carries its original Latin sense of spurring someone on. The Latin "exhortari" combined "ex-", meaning "out of" or "from," with "hortari," "to incite or spur." The image is of pushing someone forward from where they stand, which is why the word has always carried a sense of urging rather than merely suggesting. The verb reached English in Middle English as "exorten," borrowed through Old French "exhorter" from the same Latin source. Its earliest English uses kept the sense of encouragement, and the stronger notion of insistent appeal grew from that root. The participle "exhorting" simply describes the act of making that urgent appeal, as in someone exhorting a crowd to act.

Synonyms: encouraging, urging

Antonyms: dissuading