Word of the Day

Sunday, January 13, 2008

supplicate

\SUP-luh-kayt\ , intransitive verb;

To make a humble and earnest petition; to pray humbly.

transitive verb:

To seek or ask for humbly and earnestly.

To make a humble petition to; to beseech.

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Quotes:

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

Origin:

Supplicate derives from the past participle of Latin supplicare, from supplex, "entreating for mercy." The noun form is supplication.