You searched for: “exercise
exercise
1. An act of employing or putting into play; the free exercise of intellect; the exercise of an option.
2. The discharge of a duty, function, or office.
3. Activity that requires physical or mental exertion, especially when performed to develop or maintain fitness: "She took an hour of vigorous daily exercise at the local sports center.
4. A task, problem, or other effort performed to develop or maintain fitness or increase skill: a piano exercise; a memory exercise.
5. An activity having a specified aspect; such as, an undertaking that was an exercise in futility.
6. Etymology: about 1340, "condition of being in an active operation" from Old French exercice, from Latin exercitium, from exercitare, frequentative of exercere, "to keep busy, to drive on"; literally, "to remove restraint", from ex-, "off" plus arcere, "to keep away, to prevent, to enclose".

The original sense may have been "driving farm animals to the field to plow"; meaning "physical activity". This was first recorded in English about 1386.

This entry is located in the following unit: -erc-, -erci- (page 1)
exercise, exercise, exorcise
exercise (EK suhr sighz") (verb)
1. To train; to work out; to keep fit: Christi attempted to go to the gymnasium daily to exercise so she would be ready to run the marathon.
2. To carry out an official function or duty: Gavin will exercise his responsibilities as vice president to the best of his ability.
exercise (EK suhr sighz") (noun)
Physical activity typically with a focus; for example, building great abs or any activity carried out with a purpose such as learning a new language: Exercise in the gym is one way to build up your body, but people need to exercise with caution and use the equipment appropriately.
exorcise (EK sor sighz" EKS or sighz") (verb)
To free or to get rid of something that is perceived as evil or difficult: Irwin joined the freedom march as a way to exorcise himself from feeling guilty about his ancestors.

The novel was about a priest who tried to exorcise demons from a young man and his sister.

As an exercise of his authority as mayor, Sandford had to arrange for a shaman to come to his town to exorcise the evil spirits that were believed to haunt the community.

(Greek > Latin: to do, to exercise, doing; action, activity, practice; the opposite of theory; from the stem of prassein, "to do, to act")