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) ( see 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

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 retired Anglican archbishop of Leshoto has been honored with those hortatory degrees by Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Oxford, Cambridge and nearly 130 other universities.

From Salon • Nov. 24, 2010

You might expect a bit of grumbling, some signs here and there of unrest—graffiti on the hortatory posters in the break room, muffled guffaws during our associate meetings—but I can detect none of that.

From "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America" by Barbara Ehrenreich