suppliant

From French suppliant, present participle of supplier. Doublet of supplicant.

• IPA^(key): /ˈsʌpliənt/

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suppliant (comparative more suppliant, superlative most suppliant)

1. Entreating with humility; supplicant.
   • 1667, John Milton, “Book I”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:

     to bow and sue for grace with suppliant knee

   • 1907, Ronald M. Burrows, The Discoveries In Crete, page 20:

     Some plaques formed part of a mosaic that covered human life with its varied scenes of peace and war. Here we have warriors, the Cretan erect, and his darker-skinned enemy prostrate and suppliant.

   • 1928, W[illiam] B[utler] Yeats, Sophocles’ King Oedipus: A Version of the Modern Stage, London: Macmillan and Co., […], →OCLC:

     Oedipus, King of my country, you can see our ages who are before your door; some it may be too young for such a journey, and some too old, Priests of Zeus such as I, and these chosen young men; while the rest of the people crowd the market-places with their suppliant branches, for the city stumbles towards death, hardly able to raise up its head

2. Supplying; auxiliary.
   • 1611 April (first recorded performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene vii]:

     your levy Must be suppliant

suppliant (plural suppliants)

1. One who pleads or requests earnestly.

   Synonyms: beseecher, petitioner, supplicant

   • 1629, Thucydides, “The First Booke”, in Thomas Hobbes, transl., Eight Bookes of the Peloponnesian Warre […], London: […] Hen[ry] Seile, […], →OCLC, page 52:

     In reuerence therefore of the hopes vvhich the Grecians haue repoſed in you, and of the preſence of Iupiter Olympius, in vvhoſe Temple here, vve are in a manner ſuppliants to you, receiue the Mitylenians into league, and ayde vs.

   • 1963, Philip Vellacott, transl., Medea, Penguin Classics, translation of original by Euripides, page 39:

     I touch your beard as a suppliant, embrace your knees, imploring you to have pity on my wretchedness.

suppliant

1. present participle of supplier

suppliant (feminine suppliante, masculine plural suppliants, feminine plural suppliantes)

1. suppliant, begging, pleading, imploring

suppliant m (plural suppliants, feminine suppliante)

1. supplicant

• “suppliant”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.