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To expostulate is to speak up, with feeling, because you think someone is wrong or about to do something foolish. You do not just complain; you reason with them. The usual pattern is expostulate with someone. The word is old and very formal. You will meet it in novels and careful writing; almost nobody says it in the street. A younger speaker would say “try to talk them out of it,” “argue with them,” or “protest.” Though actually it is warmer than a cold legal protest: there is care in it, or at least heat.
力勸、嚴正勸告（極書面）
組成From Latin expostulō (“demand, claim”) + -ate (the verb ending). By the look of the English word: ex- + postulate.
同家族的字
- expostulationthe noun for the act or the words
- postulatethe Latin piece still visible in postulate, “to put forward as a claim”
原始詞典資料1 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
expostulateverb/ɛksˈpɒstjʊleɪt/
- 1
To protest or remonstrate; to reason earnestly with a person on some impropriety of conduct [(often) with with].
- 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.”
資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。