petition

From Middle English, borrowed from Old French peticiun, from stem of Latin petitio, petitionem (“a request, solicitation”), from petere (“to require, seek, go forward”).

• IPA^(key): /pəˈtɪʃ.ən/

  • Audio (Southern England):

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petition (plural petitions)

1. A formal written request made by an individual or a group of people to a sovereign or political authority, often containing many signatures, soliciting some grace, right, mercy, or the redress of some wrong or grievance. [from early 15th c.]

   We're looking to get 10,000 people to sign the petition to have the bird colony given legal protection.

2. (law, by extension) A formal written application made to a magistrate or court for an order or a suit for divorce. [from 1730s]
3. A prayer or supplication, especially of which is formal or humble and made to a deity, a sovereign, or an authority. [from c. 1330]

   a petition to aid

   a petition to God for courage and strength

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, 1 Maccabees 7:37:

     A house of prayer and petition for thy people.

petition (third-person singular simple present petitions, present participle petitioning, simple past and past participle petitioned)

1. (transitive) To make a petition to (a sovereign or political authority).

   The villagers petitioned the council to demolish the dangerous building.

   • 1955 April, “Notes and News: Restoring the Festiniog Railway”, in Railway Magazine, page 288:

     The company, appreciating the crippling affect ^[sic] that this scheme will have on its activities unless the railway is diverted, has petitioned against the North Wales Hydro-Electric Power Bill at present before the House of Lords.

• “petition, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.
• Douglas Harper (2001–2025) “petition”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.

• “petition”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.