adjuration

American  

[aj-uh-rey-shuhn] / ˌædʒ əˈreɪ ʃən /

noun

1. an earnest request; entreaty.

2. a solemn or desperate urging or counseling.

   an adjuration for all citizens of the beleaguered city to take shelter.

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Etymology

Origin of adjuration

1605–15; < Latin adjūrātiōn- (stem of adjūrātiō ), equivalent to adjūrāt ( us ), past participle of adjūrāre to adjure + -ion- -ion

Explanation

Use the noun adjuration to describe the serious, whole-hearted way you begged your parents to let you have a puppy when you were little. During your adjuration to get that puppy, did you say, "I swear I'll feed it and walk it every day! I swear to clean up after it!"? If so, you were really in tune with the origin of adjuration, the Latin ad- or "to" and jurare, "swear" — in the sense of taking an oath of honesty. Adjuration involves both begging and promising.

Example Sentences

New York's volcanic little Mayor Fiorello Henry LaGuardia is paternally proud of his neat fleet of silver streamlined, street-cleaning trucks, which bear the adjuration: Our City�Yours and Mine�Keep It Clean.

From Time Magazine Archive

This strikes us now-a-days as anything but a very solemn or a very momentous form of adjuration.

From A Cursory History of Swearing by Sharman, Julian

But this time, too, her adjuration failed to awaken an echo.

From The Song of Songs by Sudermann, Hermann

And added: "This is but an intimation Of more wicked adjuration," while he pointed to the second entrance, the inscription over which read: "Arbour of Wicked Vows."

From The Song of Songs by Sudermann, Hermann

The solemn adjuration is made in the name of the Church by her ministers and in the ritual form prescribed by her, as in the exorcisms of Baptism.

From Moral Theology A Complete Course Based on St. Thomas Aquinas and the Best Modern Authorities by Callan, Charles Jerome

Related Words

• application
• bid
• call
• claim
• demand
• overture
• petition
• plea
• proposal
• question
• suit