Word of the Day Archive
Saturday September 25, 1999

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exalt \ig-ZOLT\ , verb:
1. To praise, glorify, or honor.
2. To heighten or intensify.
3. To raise in rank, character, or status; as, "exalted the humble shoemaker to the rank of King's adviser."

A show that was merely competent needed something special if it was to run--a couple of hit tunes, something astonishing in design or choreography... or a theatre-filling personality who can exalt ordinary material."
-- Ethan Mordden, Coming Up Roses: The Broadway Musical in the 1950s

They exalt the mysterious imperative of a pay phone ringing on a city street or on a lonely desert highway and eagerly anticipate the intersection of lives when someone feels compelled to pick up that receiver."
-- "If a Pay Phone Rings, Who Will Answer?", New York Times, May 14, 1998

Other cultures worship twins as a divine gift; for instance, the voodoo practitioners of West Africa and Haiti exalt twins as supernatural beings with a single soul, who are to be revered and feared.
-- Lawrence Wright, Twins: And What They Tell Us About Who We Are

Exalt comes from Latin exalto, exaltare, to raise high, from ex-, out of (but here simply used intensively; that is, to give emphasis) + altus, high.

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for exalt

 

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