Exponentiable functors between quantaloid-enriched categories are characterized in elementary terms. The proof goes as follows: the elementary conditions on a given functor translate into existence statements for certain adjoints that obey some lax commutativity; this, in turn, is precisely what is needed to prove the existence of partial products with that functor; so that the functor's exponentiability follows from the works of Niefield [1980] and Dyckhoff and Tholen [1987].