Expostulation

noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The act of reasoning earnestly in order to dissuade or remonstrate. countable, uncountable

    "At length, by dint of much wriggling, and loud and incessant expostulations upon the unbecomingness of his hugging a fellow male in that matrimonial sort of style, I succeeded in extracting a grunt […]"

  2. 2
    an exclamation of protest or remonstrance or reproof wordnet
  3. 3
    the act of expressing earnest opposition or protest wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
admonitionadvocacybeefbitchboycottbriefing

Example

More examples

"At length, by dint of much wriggling, and loud and incessant expostulations upon the unbecomingness of his hugging a fellow male in that matrimonial sort of style, I succeeded in extracting a grunt […]"

Etymology

From Latin expostulātiōnem, accusative singular of expostulātiō (“complaint, expostulation”), from expostulō (“demand, expostulate”), from ex (“out of, from”) + postulō (“demand or claim”). See expostulate.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.