hortatory

American  

[hawr-tuh-tawr-ee, -tohr-ee] / ˈhɔr təˌtɔr i, -ˌtoʊr i /

adjective

1. urging to some course of conduct or action; exhorting; encouraging.

   a hortatory speech.

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hortatory British  

/ -trɪ, ˈhɔːtətərɪ, ˈhɔːtətɪv /

adjective

1. tending to exhort; encouraging

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Other Word Forms

• hortation noun
• hortatorily adverb

Etymology

Origin of hortatory

First recorded in 1580–90; from Late Latin hortātōrius “encouraging,” equivalent to hortā(rī) ( hortative ) + -tōrius -tory ¹

Explanation

Hortatory is a word used to describe a behavior or action that is encouraging. In the face of great economic crisis, the president's speech takes on a hortatory or encouraging tone, at a time when people most need the reassurance. Hortatory, pronounced hawr-tuh-tawr-ee, is probably not a word you hear a lot, but what it describes is common. Teachers often give hortatory speeches when students are most overwhelmed. Coaches scream hortatory remarks to their team in the locker room to keep the players motivated. When you're lying in bed in the morning ignoring your alarm, look for that little hortatory voice in your head, encouraging you to get up so that you're not late.

Example Sentences

The tendency in David’s editing process is almost always to the hortatory.

From Washington Post • Mar. 24, 2022

His preferred medium was Twitter, where his 280-characters-at-a-time rhetoric was a study in hortatory rather than oratory.

From Seattle Times • Jan. 12, 2021

It was part hortatory, part personal testimony, part barstool blowhard, a rambling, disjointed, digressive, what-me-worry approach that combined aspects of cable television rage, big-tent religious revivalism, Borscht Belt tummler, motivational speaking, and YouTube vlogging.

From Salon • Apr. 30, 2020

But for all their ideological similarities, their rallies are lessons in the rivals’ differences — Sanders’ rhetoric hortatory and broad, Warren’s deeply personal.

From Los Angeles Times • Aug. 19, 2019

The success of these hortatory campaigns has been mixed, at best, especially when it comes to the government’s highly unpopular efforts to lure city-bred people into back-breaking farm labor.

From "Escape from Camp 14: One Man's Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West" by Blaine Harden