exuberant and exorbitant

An interviewee on ABC radio commented on the exuberant taxes that added to the difficulties that farmers faced.  The notion of an exuberant tax was new to me (I would much prefer a demure and unassuming tax) but I find that confusion between exuberant and exorbitant has been happening for a while and grammar guides routinely comment on it.

Exorbitant is from the Latin ex orbita, ex meaning ‘out of’ and orbita meaning ‘the wheel track or rut of a cart’ so something that is exorbitant goes beyond its usual path or progress.  You used to be able to describe people as exorbitant by which you meant they were behaving in erratic and possibly sinful ways, but that meaning which flourished in the 1600s is now obsolete. These days taxes and prices are routinely exorbitant.

Exuberant is also Latin from ex indicating an excess and uber meaning ‘fruitful, fertile’, from uber meaning ‘a breast’.  It was a poetic word in Latin and still has a slightly literary feel to it.

So best to remember exorbitant as ‘excessive’ and exuberant as ‘fruitful’.  Exorbitant as the everyday word and exuberant as the poetic word.  I don’t think we confuse them much but, when we do, it is startling.