Pick the formal, serious, common word "exude" when you want to emphasize how someone or something seems to constantly, consistently produce some particular mood, emotion, quality, or characteristic, as if sweating it out through every pore.

For example, you could say that a person (or a place or a thing) exudes calm, joy, charm, warmth, strength, kindness, beauty, energy, mystery, or confidence. Feel free to get abstract! Here's the New York Times: "President Obama was there, too, in sunglasses, exuding celebrity."

Unpleasant things, also, can be exuded. You might talk about someone who exudes sleaze, malice, tension, anger, jealousy, or desperation. Or about something that exudes a nasty smell, like a closet that exudes the stench of moth balls.

Speaking of stenches, because the word "exude" implies sweating, we often talk about people or things that exude particular smells. That can be pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. "A pot simmers on the stove, exuding the rich scent of curry." "[He exuded] an odor of new money (Toni Morrison)." "Sea air exudes from the man's clothes (Anthony Doerr)."

"With its antique tools, modern touches and intriguing rotation of patients, the renovated lab exudes a certain mad-scientist magic." 
— Molly Young, New York Times, 18 April 2024

"The Commandant exudes a deathly chill, as if her gray eyes and cut-glass features were carved from the underbelly of a glacier."
— Sabaa Tahir, An Ember in the Ashes, 2015

has this page helped you understand "exude"?

Awesome, I'm glad it helped!

Thanks for letting me know!
If you have any questions about this word, please message me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.

study it:

Explain the meaning of "exude" without saying "give off" or "radiate."

try it out:

Fill in the blanks: "(Someone) knew how to exude (some quality) (in some situation)."

Example 1: "Savvy shoppers know how to exude disinterest when looking at cars, or anything whose price is up for negotiation."

Example 2: "She knew how to exude glamour even when buying groceries."
— Vesper Stamper, What the Night Sings , 2018

If you like, use this space to write. (To save your work, copy and paste it into an email or a document.)

before you review, play:

Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out.

Our game for this month is the Game of Venery! 

Longtime readers may recognize this game from 2019, when we played with terms from James Lipton's book An Exaltation of Larks. This time, we’ll play with terms from Daniel E. Meyers's online Collective Noun Catalog.

To play, check out the two templates below, and have fun filling them in and sharing your inventions with your family. You can be as lofty, silly, or bawdy as you like. To see the way the terms actually appear in Meyers’s catalog, scroll to the bottom of the issue.

Try these today:

1. an aberration of _____

2. a/an _____ of twitches

review this word:

1. The opposite of EXUDE could be

A. HIDE.
B. INTRUDE.
C. PROTRUDE.

2. True to the metaphor underlying the word "exude," J. D. Salinger wrote, "Her tone couldn't have held more wonder and censure if Zooey's _____ had been exuding crude oil."

A. eyes
B. pores
C. mouth

Answers to the review questions: 1. A 2. B Answers to the game questions: Your invented terms of venery can be anything you like! Here are the ones from the catalog: 1. an aberration of deviants 2. an embarrassment of twitches And here are mine: 1. an aberration of emo kids 2. a suppression of twitches

a final word:

I hope you're enjoying Make Your Point. It's made with love. I'm Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words. From my blog: On vocabulary...       36 ways to study words.       Why we forget words, & how to remember them.       How to use sophisticated words without being awkward. On writing...       How to improve any sentence.       How to motivate our kids to write.       How to stop procrastinating and start writing.       How to bulk up your writing when you have to meet a word count. From my heart: a profound thanks to the generous patrons, donors, and sponsors that make it possible for me to write these emails. If you'd like to be a patron or a donor, please click here. If you'd like to be a sponsor and include your ad in an issue, please contact me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com. A disclaimer: When I write definitions, I use plain language and stick to the words' common, useful applications. If you're interested in authoritative and multiple definitions of words, I encourage you to check a dictionary. Also, because I'm American, I stick to American English when I share words' meanings, usage, and pronunciations; these elements sometimes vary across world Englishes.