Expatiate vs Expostulate - What's the difference?
expatiate | expostulate |
To range at large, or without restraint.
* Alexander Pope
To write or speak at length; to be copious in argument or discussion, to descant.
*1851 ,
* Addison
* 2007 , Clive James, Cultural Amnesia (Picador 2007, p. 847)
*:“It can't fly,” he expatiated . “It can move forward only by hopping.”
(obsolete) To expand; to spread; to extend; to diffuse; to broaden.
To protest or remonstrate; to reason earnestly with a person on some impropriety of conduct.
* Jowett
* 1719,
* 1843 , '', book 2, ch. XI, ''The Abbot’s Ways
As verbs the difference between expatiate and expostulate
is that expatiate is to range at large, or without restraint while expostulate is to protest or remonstrate; to reason earnestly with a person on some impropriety of conduct.expatiate
English
Verb
(expatiat)- Bids his free soul expatiate in the skies.
- Now, as the business of standing mast-heads, ashore or afloat, is a very ancient and interesting one, let us in some measure expatiate here.
- He expatiated on the inconveniences of trade.
expostulate
English
Verb
(expostulat)- Men expostulate with erring friends; they bring accusations against enemies who have done them a wrong.
- The tears would run plentifully down my face when I made these reflections; and sometimes I would expostulate with myself why Providence should thus completely ruin His creatures, and render them so absolutely miserable; so without help, abandoned, so entirely depressed, that it could hardly be rational to be thankful for such a life.
- […] he affectionately loved many persons to whom he never or hardly ever shewed a countenance of love. Once on my venturing to expostulate with him on the subject, he reminded me of Solomon: “Many sons I have; it is not fit that I should smile on them.”