Implore
noun, verb ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 An act of begging or pleading earnestly or urgently; an entreaty, an imploration or imploring, a plea. obsolete, rare
"Suddenly out of his delightfull dreame / The man avvoke, and vvould haue queſtiond more; / But he vvould not endure that vvofull theame / For to dilate at large, but vrged ſore / VVith percing vvordes, and pittifull implore, / Him haſty to ariſe."
- 1 To beg or plead for (something) earnestly or urgently; to beseech. transitive
"And giue me leaue, / And doe not ſay 'tis Superſtition, that / I kneele, and then implore her Bleſſing."
- 2 call upon in supplication; entreat wordnet
- 3 To beg or plead that (someone) earnestly or urgently do something; to beseech, to entreat. transitive
"Acquaint her vvith the danger of my ſtate, / Implore her, in my voice, that ſhe make friends / To the ſtrict deputie: […]"
- 4 Often followed by for (a thing) or of (a person): to express an earnest or urgent plea. intransitive
"That fortnight Rochester passed in intriguing and imploring."
Example
More examples"Ought we to implore the assistance of the Nymphs? But then Pan did not help Philetas when he loved Amaryllis."
Etymology
PIE word *h₁én The verb is borrowed from Middle French implorer (modern French implorer (“to beg, plead, implore”)), or directly from its etymon Latin implōrāre, the present active infinitive of implōrō (“to beseech, entreat, implore; to appeal to, pray to”), from im- (a variant of in- (intensifying prefix)) + plōrō (“to cry out; to complain, deplore, lament”) (possibly from Proto-Indo-European *pleh₃(w)- (“to flow; to swim”)). The noun is derived from the verb.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.