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Jan 18, 2019
This week’s theme
Adjectives

This week’s words
allicient
cernuous
xanthic
predaceous
hortative

hortative
Art: James Montgomery Flagg, 1916

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with Anu Garg

hortative

PRONUNCIATION:
(HOHR-tuh-tiv)

MEANING:
adjective: Strongly urging.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin hortari (to urge). Ultimately from the Indo-European root gher- (to like or want), which also gave us yearn, charisma, greedy, and exhort. Earliest documented use: 1623.

USAGE:
“Nick Groom’s stated aim is hortative: in the face of climate change, local homogenisation, and galloping species loss, he wants culture to be ‘enlisted in the defence of the environment’.”
Melissa Harrison; Lore of the Land; Financial Times (London, UK); Dec 14, 2013.

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

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Everyone has a belief system, B.S., the trick is to learn not to take anyone's B.S. too seriously, especially your own. -Robert Anton Wilson, novelist (18 Jan 1932-2007)

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