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Definition of "exertion" []

  • The act or an instance of exerting, especially a strenuous effort. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "exertion" in a sentence
  • "Hence he has found it practically the greatest economy of mental labor to work vigorously when he is disposed to do so, and to refrain from exertion, so far as possible, _when it is felt to be an exertion_. ""
  • "In our waking hours a perpetual voluntary exertion, of which we are unconscious, attends all our new trains of ideas, whether those of imagination or of perception; which by comparing them with our former experience preserves the consistency of the former, by rejecting such as are incongruous; and adds to the credibility of the latter, by their analogy to objects of our previous knowledge: and this exertion is attended with pleasurable sensation."
  • "This small journey seems quite a formidable expedition to me, and that sort of cowardly feeling of incapacity and disinclination for the smallest effort or unusual exertion is the growth of a two years 'habit over that of thirty preceding ones, and is a greater sign of age than white hairs, wrinkles, or loss of teeth."