A strong and urgent appeal or plea to someone to do something.
From Latin exhortatio, from exhortari (ex-, 'out' + hortari, 'to encourage'). The root 'hortari' meant 'to encourage or incite,' and the 'ex-' prefix intensified it.
The word 'exhort' is much rarer than 'exhortation'—we say 'he urged them' more often than 'he exhorted them'—yet the noun form survives in legal, religious, and formal speech contexts.
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