Word of the Day Archive
Monday May 2, 2005
supplicate \SUP-luh-kayt\
, intransitive verb:
1. To make a humble and earnest petition; to pray humbly.
transitive verb:
1. To seek or ask for humbly and earnestly.
2. To make a humble petition to; to beseech.
Lehi's list of enemies was long and broad, including not only the British and the Arabs, but respected Jewish leaders like David Ben-Gurion and Golda Meir, whom they dismissed as weaklings and compromisers prepared to supplicate before the aristocratic count.
-- Tod Hoffman, "Count (Folke) Bernadotte's folly", Queen's Quarterly, December 22, 1996
Their ambassadors would plead, supplicate, cajole, threaten, lobby, or bribe the bureaucrats who were administering the licenses and quotas.
-- Zafar U. Ahmed, "India's economic reforms", Competitiveness Review, January 1, 1999
In this formula, practitioners of religion are more or less powerless over the supernatural beings with whom they deal; they can only supplicate those beings for favours and then await their response.
-- Ronald Hutton, "Paganism and Polemic", Folklore, April 2000
Supplicate derives from the past participle of Latin supplicare, from supplex, "entreating for mercy." The noun form is supplication.
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for supplicate
