The Collaborative International Dictionary
Hortatory \Hor"ta*to*ry\, a. [L. hortatorius.]
Giving exhortation or advise; encouraging; exhortatory;
inciting; as, a hortatory speech.
--Holland.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1580s, from Middle French hortatoire and directly from Late Latin hortatorius "encouraging, cheering," from hortatus, past participle of hortari "exhort, encourage, urge, incite, instigate," intensive of horiri "urge, incite, encourage," from PIE root *gher- (5) "to like, want" (cognates: Old English giernan "to strive, desire, yearn;" Gothic gairnei "desire;" Greek khresthai "to lack, want; use, make use of," kharis "grace, favor," khairein "to rejoice, delight in;" Sanskrit haryati "finds pleasure, likes," harsate "is aroused;" Avestan zara "effort, aim;" Russian zhariti "awake desire, charm").
Wiktionary
a. Giving exhortation or advice; encouraging; exhortatory; inciting. n. 1 exhortation or advice; incitement; encouragement. 2 That which exhorts, incites, or encourages.
WordNet
adj. giving strong encouragement [syn: exhortative, exhortatory, hortative]
Usage examples of "hortatory".
He became irregular in his sobriety and would launch into disconnected, hortatory speeches about such matters as space exploration.
The purpose of Hortatory is to exhort men to virtue, not to punish crime.
Greyne contented herself with daily letters, but latterly she had resorted to wires, explanatory, condemnatory, hortatory, and even comminatory.
But immediately the young Republic emerged from the stresses of adolescence, a missionary army took to the field again, and before long the Asbury revival was paling that of Whitefield, Wesley and Jonathan Edwards, not only in its hortatory violence but also in the length of its lists of slain.
Without a hortatory tone, to which, actually, I have no right, I intend to pronounce my parting words in the tones of an old friend who is listened to with half-condescending, half-impatient attention, if only he does not become excessively long-winded.
There was something a bit too paternal and hortatory and all-wise in the advice offered from that quarter.