Primary
''expostulate'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20250716210300-00-⌔
expostulate - Wiktionary, the free dictionary
English
Verb
expostulate (third-person singular simple present expostulates, present participle expostulating, simple past and past participle expostulated)
- (intransitive) To protest or remonstrate; to reason earnestly with a person on some impropriety of conduct [(often) with with]. [from 16th c.]
- ✤ The tears would run plentifully down my face when I made these reflections; and sometimes I would expostulate with myself why Providence should thus completely ruin His creatures, and render them so absolutely miserable; so without help, abandoned, so entirely depressed, that it could hardly be rational to be thankful for such a life.1
- ✤ […] he affectionately loved many persons to whom he never or hardly ever shewed a countenance of love. Once on my venturing to expostulate with him on the subject, he reminded me of Solomon: “Many sons I have; it is not fit that I should smile on them.”2
- ✤ Men expostulate with erring friends; they bring accusations against enemies who have done them a wrong.3
Etymology
From Latin expostulō (“demand, claim”) + -ate (verb-forming suffix). By surface analysis, ex- + postulate.
Pronunciation
- (UK) IPA: /ɛksˈpɒstjʊleɪt/
- (General American) IPA: /ɛksˈpɑstjʊleɪt/
- Audio (US): 🔊
Printed 2026-06-28.
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Link to original Footnotes
1719 May 6 (Gregorian calendar), [Daniel Defoe], The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, […], London: […] W[illiam] Taylor […], →OCLC: ↩
1843 April, Thomas Carlyle, “XI, “The Abbot’s Ways””, in Past and Present, American edition, Boston, Mass.: Charles C[offin] Little and James Brown, published 1843, →OCLC, book II (The Ancient Monk): ↩
1881, Benjamin Jowett, Thucydides: ↩
Secondary
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