Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Hortatory.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Giving exhortation; encouraging; inciting.
  • noun An address intended to incite or encourage; an exhortation.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Giving exhortation; advisory; exhortative.
  • noun obsolete An exhortation.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective comparable Urging, exhorting, or encouraging.
  • adjective grammar, not comparable Of a mood or class of imperative subjunctive moods of a verb for giving strong encouragement.
  • noun grammar A mood or class of imperative subjunctive moods of a verb for giving strong encouragement.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective giving strong encouragement

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Late Latin hortātīvus, from Latin hortātus, past participle of hortārī, to exhort; see gher- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin hortātīvus, from hortor ‘exhort’.

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Examples

  • The hortative title of "Publish Your Photography Book" Princeton Architectural Press, 224 pages, $29.95 is not really necessary; as authors Darius D.

    Gift Guide: Photography Books William Meyers 2011

  • January 25th, 2007 at 5: 55 am awesome idea! so easy, so powerfull, so hortative.

    REVERSE GRAFFITI: Clean Green Street Art | Inhabitat 2007

  • "You've got to accentuate the hortative, eliminate pejoratives, latch on to the deprecative, and don't mess with Mr. In-Between."

    languagehat.com: GO TO, THOU ART A FOOLISH FELLOW. 2005

  • How did the mere hortative manage to exist alongside the deprecative?

    languagehat.com: GO TO, THOU ART A FOOLISH FELLOW. 2005

  • How did the mere hortative manage to exist alongside the deprecative?

    languagehat.com: GO TO, THOU ART A FOOLISH FELLOW. 2005

  • This with similar usages throughout the KJV seems to be merely hortative, bleached of any chiding tone.

    languagehat.com: GO TO, THOU ART A FOOLISH FELLOW. 2005

  • It was an ancient and a sad matron of a sedate look and christian walking, in habit dun beseeming her megrims and wrinkled visage, nor did her hortative want of it effect for incontinently

    Ulysses 2003

  • From the schematic linearity of its structure to the hortative tone of its narration, the grant permeates each sequence as the blues infuses every composition by Duke Ellington.

    Not Quite All That Jazz Hajdu, David 2001

  • He knew some members of the congregation, including the president, grew restive during his discourse, and would have preferred a more oratorical, hortative style, but he felt his type of sermon was more in keeping with his basic function of teacher, implicit in the word "rabbi."

    Saturday the Rabbi Went Hungry Kemelman, Harry 1966

  • He has fourteen moods; his _interrogative, optative, hortative, promissive, precautive, requisitive, enunciative_, &c. But as far as philosophical accuracy and the convenience and advantage of the learner are concerned, it is believed that no arrangement is preferable to the following.

    English Grammar in Familiar Lectures Samuel Kirkham

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