Word Watch: Exult

For the festive season, here are a pair of verbs that sound celebratory, and sometimes are: “exalt” and “exult”. There’s an entirely understandable confusion in many people’s minds between the two words. Here’s a recent specimen of the muddle, taken from a thoroughly respectable journal:  “… the liberal left in America even exalted about the degree to which they had gerrymandered the agenda …” – The Spectator, October 2023

“Exalted” strikes a very odd note in that statement. Indeed, it’s not at all clear what the writer intended to say. The verb “to exalt” means “to elevate by praise or in estimation; to raise in rank, honour or power”. Its “alt” component is from the Latin “altus”, meaning “high”. That is clearly at odds with what the writer means, but just what that is we are left guessing. The added preposition “about” takes the confusion further. How do you “raise in rank” something, let alone a “degree”, “about” anything? 

For “exult”, on the other hand, the same dictionary gives the definition “to feel or show a lively or triumphant joy; to rejoice exceedingly; to be highly elated or jubilant”. The derivation is from the Latin “salire”, “to leap”. The OED helpfully states that an obsolete meaning of “exult” was “to leap for joy”, so the element of rejoicing is indeed buried there. It cites an early (1655) and charming use: “a fountain doth at the sound of a pipe rejoicingly exult and leap up”.

But the two words are etymologically distinct, and although their meanings overlap there’s no justification for the confusion other than the similarity in spelling. However, they both have Biblical resonances which I would guess subconsciously influence our attitude to them.  

A famous instance of “exalt” is in Psalm 34, verse 3: “O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together”. Here is the word in its classic form. And we also have “magnify”, a near-synonym derived from the Latin meaning “to enlarge”: the same word that that occurs in the “Magnificat”, the famous hymn of praise recited by the Virgin Mary on the occasion of her visit to her cousin Elizabeth (Luke 1:46) “My soul doth magnify the Lord”- in the Latin set by many composers as an anthem, or the Anglican canticle in the service of Mattins: “Magnificat anima mea Dominum”. Elizabeth was pregnant with John the Baptist and “it came to pass, that, when Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leapt in her womb” (Luke 1: 41). There can be little doubt that this was an “exultation” in the old-fashioned sense of the word.    

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