entreat
/ɪnˈtriːt
/ /ɛnˈtriːt/verb
1 [reporting verb] Ask someone earnestly or anxiously to do something: [with object and infinitive]: his friends entreated him not to go (as adjective entreating) his entreating eyes...
- I believe he spoke to her for a long time, entreating, wondering, pleading, ordering, I suppose.
- ‘Workers all over the world need our help’, he entreated.
- ‘We really ought to tell them we're weighed down with responsibility and not the carefree single girls we seem,’ I entreated.
Synonyms
implore, beseech, beg, plead with, supplicate, pray, ask, request;
bid, enjoin, appeal to, call on, petition, solicit;
exhort, urge, importune
dated crave
rare impetrate, obtest, obsecrate
1.1 [with object] Ask earnestly or anxiously for (something): a message had been sent, entreating aid for the Navahos...
- Since Hezekiah feared the Lord and entreated his favor, Zion was not plowed under as a field.
- He had hung crude crosses and other charms all around his home and regularly recited the Magnificat, and he fervently entreated the protection of the Lady every night.
- No sounds were heard as they entreated entrance to the village.
2 [with object and adverbial] archaic Treat (someone) in a specified manner: the King, I fear, hath ill entreated her
Derivatives
entreatingly
/ /ɛnˈtriːtɪŋli / adverb ...- ‘Oh, Jamie, please listen to me,’ she said entreatingly.
- He looked entreatingly at her.
- Jen looked up at her entreatingly, her blue eyes piercing, and Kate had to sigh softly, ‘All right, we'll have dinner.’
Origin
Late Middle English (in the sense 'treat, act towards (someone)'; formerly also as intreat): from Old French entraitier, based on traitier 'to treat', from Latin tractare 'to handle'.
Rhymes
- unsuitableness
- unsuitably
- unsuited
- unsullied
- unsummoned
- unsung
- unsung hero
- unsung heroine
- unsupervised
- unsupportable
- unsupportably
- unsupported
- unsupportive
- unsuppressed
- unsure
- unsurely
- unsureness
- unsurfaced
- unsurmountable
- unsurpassable
- unsurpassably
- unsurpassed
- unsurprised
- unsurprising
- unsurprisingly