supplicant
Americanadjective
noun
noun
adjective
Etymology
Origin of supplicant
1590–1600; < Latin supplicant- (stem of supplicāns ), present participle of supplicāre to supplicate; see -ant; doublet of suppliant
Explanation
If you pray every night to be accepted to your dream college, you can call yourself a supplicant, or a person who asks humbly for something. A supplicant can be a fervently religious person who prays to God for help with a problem, and it can also be someone who begs earnestly for something he or she wants. A younger brother entreating his sister to be allowed in her tree house could be described as a supplicant. The Latin root word is supplicantem, "plead humbly."
Vocabulary lists containing supplicant
The Shining
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Grendel
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"The Open Boat" by Stephen Crane
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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.
Four years of war and economic isolation have reduced the Russian president to a supplicant in a relationship growing more imbalanced—and at times tense.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 14, 2026
Mr. Putin sits hunched and tensed at the other end, an autocrat reduced to a supplicant.
From New York Times ● Jun. 30, 2022
This time, therefore, it was the Russian leader who came to China's capital as the supplicant.
From Salon ● Mar. 13, 2022
She returns to them here like a supplicant at her prayer book: begging to understand them even just a little bit more.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 19, 2021
But the Gods have other things to do: they cannot attend to the pleas of every supplicant who dares to raise his cares to heaven.
From "Nectar in a Sieve" by Kamala Markandaya
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.
