Extol is the preferred spelling of a verb which means to praise lavishly or to glorify. When one extols a person’s virtues, one speaks of that person in heroic terms. Extol comes from the Latin ex– meaning out or upward and tollere meaning raise.
When using extol in the past tense, the preferred spelling is extolled, the indicative is extolling and adverb is extollingly. Derivative nouns are extoller and extolement, these words are rarely used.
The spelling extoll is accepted, but is quickly becoming obsolete.
Examples
But for one day, this day, let’s take the time to extol the virtues and benefits of where we live, and remember that we are fortunate to be here. (The Globe and Mail)
Young black men swagger through their frayed neighborhoods wearing vintage Ralph Lauren shirts; creative souls show off hand-painted denim jackets; and street-style icons extol the primacy of Lee jeans and Cazal sunglasses on the short list of cool togs. (The Washington Post)
But to breezily extol the joys of driving at 250 km an hour is an invitation for thoughtless people to kill themselves. (The Hindustan Times)
New York Senator Charles Schumer, extolling the importance of newly discovered friezes painted in 1836 by Hudson River School founder Thomas Cole, promised Wednesday morning to push for more than $600,000 in federal money to restore the long-lost works. (The Times Union)
The life and accomplishments of Pittsburgh’s Naomi Sims, the first African-American supermodel from the 1960s and ’70s, were extolled Thursday night to a crowded lecture hall in Oakland. (The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
For every extoller of the power of faith there will be a man like Nicholas Winton, the 105-year-old “British Schindler”, who concludes that organised religion is a facade. (The Irish Times)