hortatory means giving exhortation or advice; encouraging. It carries an Arena rating of 1688, earned across 36 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, hortatory ranks #3,232 of 17,134 for Most Malleable Words, #4,765 of 17,132 for Most Betrayed by Its Sound, #4,812 of 17,104 for Most Storied Words, #5,365 of 17,127 for Words That Escaped Their Books.
hortatory is pronounced /ˈhɔːtətəɹi/.
Why “hortatory” is a great word
HORTATORY — [Adjective] Giving exhortation or advice in a manner that urges or encourages action. From Middle French *hortatoire*, from Latin *hortatorius*, from *hortor* ("to urge, encourage, exhort"). First attested in English in the 1580s. Unlike "exhortative" (which often describes a grammatical mood) or "advisory" (which suggests neutral, practical counsel), hortatory implies an urgent, stirring call to action. It is the clenched fist in the air at the head of a march, the gravel-voiced plea of a coach as the clock runs down, and the earnest, leaning-in tone of a mentor who sees potential wasting away—the human insistence that we can, and must, be better than we are.
Etymology
From Middle French hortatoire, from Latin hortor (“encourage”).
adj
- Giving exhortation or advice; encouraging.e.g.“The words were ordinary enough, and to my mind there was in them something so hortatory that I almost smiled.” — 1919, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, chapter XXV, in The Moon and Sixpence, [New York, N.Y.]: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers […], →OCLC:
noun
- Exhortation or advice; incitement; encouragement.
- That which exhorts, incites, or encourages.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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