solicitation
Americannoun
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the act of soliciting.
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entreaty, urging, or importunity; a petition or request.
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enticement or allurement.
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Law.
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the crime of asking another to commit or to aid in a crime.
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the act of a prostitute soliciting in a public place.
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Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of solicitation
First recorded in 1485–95; from Latin sollicitātiōn-, stem of sollicitātiō, from sollicitāt(us) “agitated, worried” (past participle of sollicitāre “to excite, agitate, worry”; see solicit) + -iō -ion
Explanation
Solicitation is a request for something, usually money. If you buy a fancy new house, expect a phone call from the local charity with a solicitation for a donation. Solicitation comes from solicit, which means "to request," or "to entreat." So solicitation is the act of requesting. There are three kinds of solicitation. One is asking for money, like when someone goes door-to-door trying to collect money for a cause. In law, solicitation means encouraging someone to commit a crime. Solicitation can also mean making a plea to someone with power to grant a request or favor, like your solicitation to the traffic judge to dismiss your ticket.
Vocabulary lists containing solicitation
Franklin D. Roosevelt, "A Date That Will Live In Infamy" (1941)
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The Awakening
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This Week In Words: Current Events Vocab for January 2–8, 2021
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The agency will also issue an open solicitation for Moon Base technology demonstrations and begin pursuing a lunar communication and navigation relay constellation to improve communications between infrastructure on the Moon and Earth.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 14, 2026
Henderson said he only realized the solicitation he’d been asked to do might be frowned upon after Orchid told him as much at their meal.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 12, 2026
“I shared my opinion that offering patients the opportunity to opt out once they have received a solicitation is too late because ‘you can’t un-creep people out,’” she added.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 24, 2026
That action was in response to news that an internal investigation at Prudential had found “multiple inappropriate cases involving improper investment solicitation and the like by current and former employees” within its Japan operations.
From Barron's ● May 4, 2026
They played a duet from “Zampa,” and at the earnest solicitation of everyone present followed it with the overture to “The Poet and the Peasant” Allez vous-enl Sapristir shrieked the parrot outside the door.
From "The Awakening" by Kate Chopin
Posillico alleges in the lawsuit that it incurred “substantial bid preparation and proposal costs” drawing up plans for federal solicitations that were “not genuine competitive opportunities.”
From Salon ● May 25, 2026
The Supreme Court has defined commercial speech as communication of the “terms of an actual or potential transaction” that has an “economic motivation”—for example, credit-card solicitations.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 12, 2025
At its last meeting in May, Welsh told the board that solicitations from New York brokers and investment firms began landing in his email inbox in March.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 24, 2025
They also posted solicitations for the survey on X, aimed at researchers in these fields.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 14, 2024
Piso, city prefect, bound the man and sent him to Tusculum, where, by the solicitations of Antonia, who was commanded by Agrippa, the emperor heard the charioteer's charge.
From Saul of Tarsus A Tale of the Early Christians by Miller, Elizabeth
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
