Other forms: exclaimed, exclaims, exclaiming
To exclaim is to say something loudly and suddenly out of strong feeling. Surprise, delight or outrage, straight out of the mouth.
It belongs almost entirely to writing, since novels have characters exclaiming constantly and nobody uses it in speech about themselves. It usually introduces direct speech. The punctuation mark that goes with it is the exclamation mark, which style guides say to use once a year and everybody uses hourly. An exclamation is the sudden cry itself, and interjections like oh and ouch are the smallest kind.
1verbexclaimTo cry out suddenly from strong feeling.
“Good heavens, he exclaimed, and sat down.”
To exclaim is to call out. Latin ex, out, joins clāmō, to call, the same verb that stands behind clamour.
Proto-Indo-European
*kelh₁-
Latin
exclamo — call out
Middle French
exclamer
English, today
exclaim
Built from
From Middle French exclamer, from Latin exclamo (“call out”), from ex- + clāmō (“to call”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA