Exhilarate

How to spell exhilarate

10 letters · 4 syllables

7 of the 22 people asked to spell exhilarate in Spelling Garden got it wrong the first time.

The most common mistake is exhilirate. The letters people get wrong are highlighted.

exhilirate exhilarate

What people typed instead

• exhilirate3 people

How to pronounce exhilarate

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does exhilarate mean?

1. verbTo fill someone with a feeling of lively happiness and invigorating excitement.

Exhilarate in a sentence

• The hike will exhilarate you.

• Mountain air can exhilarate even the most tired walker.

• A cold morning swim can really exhilarate you.

Where does exhilarate come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin verb exhilarare, meaning 'to make thoroughly cheerful', formed from the prefix ex- used here as an intensifier and the adjective hilaris, meaning 'cheerful' or 'merry'. That Latin hilaris was itself borrowed from the Greek hilaros, with the same sense of gladness and good cheer, a root that also gives us the everyday word 'hilarious'. English adopted exhilarate in the early 1600s, at first carrying the literal idea of gladdening someone before settling into the modern sense of filling a person with lively, exciting energy. The silent h after the opening ex- is the classic spelling trap, since the pronunciation gives no clear signal that it is there, and the single l surprises people who expect a double. Remembering its kinship with 'hilarious' helps fix both the h and the single l in place.

How the word is built

• ex- (thoroughly)
• hilar (cheerful, from Latin hilaris)
• -ate (verb suffix)