One Step Now Education

December 26, 2025

exalt

Many things may attract you to a word. You may notice a similarity to another word and wonder about a connection. You may be curious about the base of the word. You might be amazed by an unusual grapheme.

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For the word exalt, I wondered, "What is the base of this word?" "Is it related to alternate?" There's an ALT button on most keyboards. And yet, there doesn't seem to be any connection between alternate and what I believe is the meaning of the word exalt. Luckily, we have the Four Question Framework to help us investigate this word.

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As we explore exalt, we'll consider how context clues can be used to puzzle out a new word. We can see how verbs work and their inflectional suffixes. We will learn a little bit about how the prefix works, and test our knowledge of voiced and unvoiced pairs.

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Let's first dig into meaning...

Meaning

What is this word's meaning and how does the word function?

When using the Four Question Framework, developed by Dr. Peter Bowers, we begin with a word's meaning. If you look at how I word the question, not only do I want to know the word's definition, but I'd also like to know how the word functions. After all, I'm here to teach my students to use the language they are learning to read and write.

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When we look at meaning first, we are anchoring our study in something that is meaningful for students. This is not about copying a dictionary definition or memorizing for a vocab test on Friday. This is about understanding a word's form and function inside and out so that students can use it in our reading and speaking.

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When something is exalted, it is placed upon a pedestal. It is looked at with great reverence. It is something "higher." Contexts where I've heard the word most involve governmental figures, royalty, and religion. These are all the thoughts I consider before I formally approach the meaning of this word. You may have different thoughts to bring to the table. Your students will have still other thoughts...if they have heard of the word at all.

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So what if they haven't? Sometimes I will use AI to come up with some sentences appropriate for reading level and age that they can examine to try to use context clues to get a sense of the word. I ask ChatGPT to respond to the following prompt:

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Give me three sentences using the word exalt that would be appropriate for a fifth grader.

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The results:

1. The coach began to exalt the team after their hard work won the game.
2. People often exalt heroes who show bravery and kindness.
3. The students tried to exalt their teacher by giving her a big round of applause.

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Not the best sentences, but they will do. I usually have to tweak what AI gives me.

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From that sentence, will they get something similar to what we find in the Collins dictionary entry online? To exaltsomeone means to "praise them very highly."

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Our word is a verb. A verb may be inflected for tense.

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• This paper exalts the job of our President. (present)
• Under the prior manager, this office would have exalted such work. (past)

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Or aspect.

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• Reviewers are exalting the book's depth of character. (progressive)

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Some verbs show the past tense in other ways, such as run/ran or grow/grew/grown. These verbs are strong verbs.

Structure

What are the elements that make up this word's structure?

My central question for this word is, "What is the base?" Bases and affixes are all elements that can make up a word. When we understand the base, we can find the relatives. When we know the relatives, we can see how the entire system works, rather than just one word or one family.

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ex + alt

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There is something I'm wondering here. I've seen a prefix execute where the first letter of the base exist and exude.

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Let's crack open that Etymonline entry for exalt.

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The original sense of this word was "give off vapor." The word comes to us from Old French. Old French derived the word from Latin exaltare, "raise." If we follow the next from, we see that the altus, "high"

Relatives

What are the word's relatives and history?

This relationship to altus gives us plenty of words if we were interested in creating a matrix. I do not always create a matrix with students, but we may analyze relatives into word sums. The relative altitude reminds me of our study of the suffix <-tude> a couple weeks ago. The singing parts alto and contralto are also related.

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Etymological relatives include adult and adolescent. The words elder and eldest are also relatives. Both proliferate and alimony can also be listed under etymological relatives. Etymological relatives share a common ancestor that usually go back further than a generation. These words are not derived from altus, but a relative further back.

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I'm also thinking of clouds like altonimbus and altostratus. Clouds with this element are often higher in the sky, but not the highest. Those are the cirrus clouds. I love when words just make sense once you know the etymology.

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So the word alternate is from a different PIE root. This root also gives us adultery. The PIE root that gave us exalt gives us adult. Therefore, adult and adultery are not morphological relatives you can put in the same matrix. The word adultery is built from ad + alter.

Graphemes

What can the pronunciation of the word teach us about the relationship of its graphemes and its phonology?

The grapheme unvoiced and voiced pairs. They are made in the same place in the mouth and in the same manner. Only their voicing distinguishes them.

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Interestingly the most frequent spelling for /z/ is the grapheme . Perhaps because the plural suffix <-s> occurs so often.

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In some languages, voicing is not distinctive enough for differentiating phonemes. In our own language, the difference between /f/ and /v/ only began to be recognized orthographically until the 16th and 17th centuries.

Next Steps

What concepts from this investigation can we explore next to learn more about the English orthographic system?

A word like exalt took us from high up with clouds in the sky to words associated with growing older. But it didn't take us to our keyboards or the word alternate. Sometimes its like that, a potential connection doesn't bear fruit. Nevertheless, each scientific word investigation takes us a little bit "higher" in our understanding of the English orthographic system.

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Stay curious,

Brad

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P.S. Over the next few months, you will begin to see some tweaks to the WIN, based on feedback from those who took the survey. The first change you may notice is that the emails will come from my new email service. Please let me know if you do not receive your WIN at the regular time so there's no interruption in service during this transition. Thanks.

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P.P.S. So the word alternate is from a different PIE root. That root also gives us adultery. The PIE root that gave us exalt gives us adult. Therefore, adult and adultery are not morphological relatives you can put in the same matrix. The word adultery is built from ad + alter.