SUPPLICATE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does supplicate mean? 

• SUPPLICATE (verb)
  The verb SUPPLICATE has 3 senses:

1. ask humbly (for something)

2. make a humble, earnest petition

3. ask for humbly or earnestly, as in prayer

  Familiarity information: SUPPLICATE used as a verb is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SUPPLICATE (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they supplicate    ... he / she / it supplicates   
Past simple: supplicated   
Past participle: supplicated   
-ing form: supplicating   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Ask humbly (for something)

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

Context example:

He supplicated the King for clemency

Hypernyms (to "supplicate" is one way to...):

beg; implore; pray (call upon in supplication; entreat)

Verb group:

supplicate (ask for humbly or earnestly, as in prayer)

supplicate (make a humble, earnest petition)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s somebody

Derivation:

suppliant; supplicant (one praying humbly for something)

supplicant (humbly entreating)

supplication (a humble request for help from someone in authority)

supplicatory (humbly entreating)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Make a humble, earnest petition

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

Context example:

supplicate for permission

Hypernyms (to "supplicate" is one way to...):

petition (write a petition for something to somebody; request formally and in writing)

Verb group:

supplicate (ask humbly (for something))

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s

Derivation:

supplicant; supplicatory (humbly entreating)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Ask for humbly or earnestly, as in prayer

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

Context example:

supplicate God's blessing

Hypernyms (to "supplicate" is one way to...):

ask for; bespeak; call for; quest; request (express the need or desire for)

Verb group:

supplicate (ask humbly (for something))

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s VERB-ing

Derivation:

supplicant; supplicatory (humbly entreating)

 Context examples 

I would have no mercy, Mr. Rochester, if you supplicated for it with an eye like that.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

What do you think we have been sitting down for but to be talked to about it, and entreated and supplicated never to do so again?

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

I then put myself in the most supplicating posture, and spoke in the humblest accent, but received no answer.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

The gentleness of the Doctor's manner and surprise, the dignity that mingled with the supplicating attitude of his wife, the amiable concern of Mr. Dick, and the earnestness with which my aunt said to herself, That man mad! (triumphantly expressive of the misery from which she had saved him)—I see and hear, rather than remember, as I write about it.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

All I ventured was to raise mine eyes towards the sun, and place my hands together in a supplicating posture, and to speak some words in a humble melancholy tone, suitable to the condition I then was in: for I apprehended every moment that he would dash me against the ground, as we usually do any little hateful animal, which we have a mind to destroy.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Late that night—perhaps it might be between eleven and twelve o'clock—ere I retired to my dreary rest, I supplicated God, that, if it seemed good to Him, I might soon be taken from this life, and admitted to that world to come, where there was still hope of rejoining Jane.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

He supplicated strength for the weak-hearted; guidance for wanderers from the fold: a return, even at the eleventh hour, for those whom the temptations of the world and the flesh were luring from the narrow path.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)