expostulate

present singular third person expostulates · participle present expostulating · participle past expostulated · past expostulated

1. intransitiveTo protest or remonstrate; to reason earnestly with a person on some impropriety of conduct [(often) with with].First known use 16th c.

   Men expostulate with erring friends; they bring accusations against enemies who have done them a wrong.

   1881, Benjamin Jowett, Thucydides

   2 more examples

   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.

   1719 May 6 (Gregorian calendar), [Daniel Defoe], The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, […], London: […] W[illiam] Taylor […], →OCLC

   […] 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.”

   1843 April, Thomas Carlyle, “XI, "The Abbot’s Ways"”, in Past and Present, American edition, Boston, Mass.: Charles C[offin] Little and James Brown, published 1843, →OCLC, book II (The Ancient Monk)

   Synonyms: challenge, demur, except, inveigh, kick, object, protest, remonstrate