exclaim

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English

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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From Middle French exclamer, from Latin exclāmō, exclāmāre (“call out”), from ex- + clāmō (“to call”).

Pronunciation

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Verb

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exclaim (third-person singular simple present exclaims, present participle exclaiming, simple past and past participle exclaimed)

  1. (intransitive) To cry out suddenly, from some strong emotion.
    • 1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Sixt”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene iii]:
      I am a soldier, and unapt to weep,
      Or to exclaim on fortune’s fickleness.
    • 1749, Henry Fielding, chapter 9, in The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volumes (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC, book 1, page 33:
      Very grave and good Women exclaimed against Men who begot Children and then disowned them.
    • 1815 December (indicated as 1816), [Jane Austen], Emma: […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), London: […] [Charles Roworth and James Moyes] for John Murray, →OCLC:
      This wretched note was the finale of Emma’s breakfast. When once it had been read, there was no doing any thing, but lament and exclaim.
    • 1925, Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, published 1985, page 114:
      […] he could remember Sally tearing off a rose, stopping to exclaim at the beauty of the cabbage leaves in the moonlight […]
    • 2011, Alan Hollinghurst, The Stranger’s Child‎[1], New York: Knopf, Part 4, Chapter 1, p. 285:
      […] at the front door below a few guests were leaving, and the bright rectangle widened and narrowed as they slipped out into the night, laughing and exclaiming about the weather.
  2. (transitive) To say suddenly and with strong emotion.
    • 1603, Michael Drayton, “Alice Countesse of Salisburie, to the blacke Prince”, in The Barrons Wars in the Raigne of Edward the Second‎[2], London: N. Ling, page 31:
      Must she be forc’d, t’exclaime th’iniurious wrong?
      Offred by him, whom she hath lou’d so long?
      Nay, I will tell, and I durst almost sweare,
      Edward will blush, when he his fault shall heare.
    • 1748, [Tobias Smollett], chapter 40, in The Adventures of Roderick Random. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I or II), London: […] [William Strahan] for J. Osborn […], →OCLC, page 28:
      […] her aunt, after having stared at me a good while with a look of amazement, exclaimed, “In the name of heaven! Who art thou?”—
    • 1838 March – 1839 October, Charles Dickens, chapter 12, in The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1839, →OCLC:
      Without returning any direct reply, Miss Squeers, all at once, fell into a paroxysm of spiteful tears, and exclaimed that she was a wretched, neglected, miserable castaway.
    • 1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter IX, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC:
      “Heavens!” exclaimed Nina, “the blue-stocking and the fogy!—and yours are pale blue, Eileen!—you’re about as self-conscious as Drina—slumping there with your hair tumbling à la Mérode! Oh, it's very picturesque, of course, but a straight spine and good grooming is better. […]”
    • 2017, André Aciman, “Manfred”, in Enigma Variations‎[3], New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, page 135:
      You never pump your arm when you score, you never exclaim anything, you don’t even smile when you fire a perfect backhand straight down the line.

Synonyms

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Derived terms

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English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *kelh₁-‎ (0 c, 49 e)

Translations

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Noun

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exclaim (plural exclaims)

  1. (obsolete) Exclamation; outcry, clamor.
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