Library / English Dictionary

EXPOSTULATE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Reason with (somebody) for the purpose of dissuasion

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

Hypernyms (to "expostulate" is one way to...):

argue; reason (present reasons and arguments)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s
Somebody ----s that CLAUSE

Derivation:

expostulation (the act of expressing earnest opposition or protest)

Credits

 Context examples: 

I see you can say nothing in the first place, you are faint still, and have enough to do to draw your breath; in the second place, you cannot yet accustom yourself to accuse and revile me, and besides, the flood-gates of tears are opened, and they would rush out if you spoke much; and you have no desire to expostulate, to upbraid, to make a scene: you are thinking how to act—talking you consider is of no use.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

During the course of these troubles, the emperors of Blefusca did frequently expostulate by their ambassadors, accusing us of making a schism in religion, by offending against a fundamental doctrine of our great prophet Lustrog, in the fifty-fourth chapter of the Blundecral (which is their Alcoran).

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)