[tarsinge]

> In English why do you need to say “exacerbate” when you can say “make worse”? Or “defenestrate” when you mean “toss out the window”?

You would love French (coincidentally these words are of french origin). I learn (or at least remember to use) words nearly every day.

[yesenadam]

> these words are of french origin

It seems they are derived from Latin, not French.

https://www.etymonline.com/word/exacerbate is from Latin or from:

https://www.etymonline.com/word/exacerbation

https://www.etymonline.com/word/defenestration

[williamdclt]

Almost all of latin-based words in English have been imported from French (which itself is almost entirely latin-based), including these 2. There's not much historical reason for English to pull vocabulary directly from Latin I think

[yesenadam]

Do you have evidence for that? (that these words came from French)

Your other claim doesn't seem right either, about most (let alone "almost all") words from Latin in English coming from French. Stats[0] seem to give about equal numbers of words in English from Latin and from French, 29% each. As for

> There's not much historical reason for English to pull vocabulary directly from Latin

"English has also borrowed many words directly from Latin, the ancestor of the Romance languages, during all stages of its development. Many of these words had earlier been borrowed into Latin from Greek. Latin or Greek are still highly productive sources of stems used to form vocabulary of subjects learned in higher education such as the sciences, philosophy, and mathematics."

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language#Vocabulary