Exercise

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -aɪz
• UK IPA: /ˈɛk.sÉ™.saɪz/
• US IPA: /ˈɛk.sÉš.saɪz/

Origin

From Old French exercise, from Latin exercitium

Full definition of exercise

Noun

1. Any activity designed to develop or hone a skill or ability.
   The teacher told us the next exercise is to write an essay.
• Edmund Spenser (c.1552–1599)desire of knightly exercise
• John Locke (1632-1705)an exercise of the eyes and memory
2. Physical activity intended to improve strength and fitness.
• 1910, Emerson Hough, The Purchase Price Chapter 1, This new-comer was a man who in any company would have seemed striking....He was smooth-faced, and his fresh skin and well-developed figure bespoke the man in good physical condition through active exercise, yet well content with the world's apportionment.
3. A setting in action or practicing; employment in the proper mode of activity; exertion; application; use.
• Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)exercise of the important function confided by the constitution to the legislature
• Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892)O we will walk this world,
  Yoked in all exercise of noble end.
4. The performance of an office, ceremony, or duty.
• Joseph Addison (1672-1719)Lewis refused even those of the church of England ... the public exercise of their religion.
• William Shakespeare (1564-1616)to draw him from his holy exercise
5. (obsolete) That which gives practice; a trial; a test.
• John Milton (1608-1674)Patience is more oft the exercise
  Of saints, the trial of their fortitude.

Alternative forms

• exercice rare, nominal senses only
• excercise rare, contemporary

Derived terms

• exercise book
• exercise machine
• five-finger exercise
• floor exercise
• military exercise

Verb

1. To exert for the sake of training or improvement; to practice in order to develop.
   to exercise troops or horses;  to exercise one's brain with a puzzle
2. To perform physical activity for health or training.
   I exercise at the gym every day.
3. To use (a right, an option, etc.); to put into practice.
   The tenant exercised its option to renew the tenancy.
   She is going to exercise her right to vote.
• Bible, Ezekiel xxii. 29The people of the land have used oppression and exercised robbery.
4. (now often in passive) To occupy the attention and effort of; to task; to tax, especially in a painful or vexatious manner; harass; to vex; to worry or make anxious.
   exercised with pain
• unknown date John MiltonWhere pain of unextinguishable fire
  Must exercise us without hope of end.
5. (obsolete) To set in action; to cause to act, move, or make exertion; to give employment to.
• Bible, Acts xxiv. 16Herein do I exercise myself, to have always a conscience void of offence.
• 1914, Louis Joseph Vance, Nobody Chapter 1, Little disappointed, then, she turned attention to "Chat of the Social World," gossip which exercised potent fascination upon the girl's intelligence.