implore means an act of begging or pleading earnestly or urgently; an entreaty, an imploration or imploring, a plea. It carries an Arena rating of 1492, earned across 8 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, implore ranks #2,574 of 14,448 for Funniest Words, #2,736 of 14,308 for Most Malleable Words, #5,810 of 14,297 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #7,082 of 14,423 for Most Sublime Words.
implore is pronounced /ɪmˈplɔː/.
Why “implore” is a great word
To beg or plead for something earnestly and urgently, with a desperation that exceeds ordinary request. From the Latin implorare, built upon the intensifying in- and plorare ("to cry out, lament"), a word itself rooted in the sound of weeping; first recorded in English use around 1500, borrowed from Middle French. Unlike "ask" (which implies a neutral, transactional exchange) or "adjure" (which suggests a solemn, oath-bound command), to implore is the unguarded voice of personal desperation, stripped of ceremony. It is the hand clutching a sleeve in a crowded street, the cracked voice swallowed by silence in a hospital corridor, the hands fluttering like wounded birds when words fail—a raw human sound hurled against the world's indifferent silence.
Etymology
The verb is borrowed from Middle French implorer (modern French implorer (“to beg, plead, implore”)), or directly from its etymon Latin implōrāre, the present active infinitive of implōrō (“to beseech, entreat, implore; to appeal to, pray to”), from im- (a variant of in- (intensifying prefix)) + plōrō (“to cry out; to complain, deplore, lament”) (possibly from Proto-Indo-European *pleh₃(w)- (“to flow; to swim”)). The noun is derived from the verb.
noun
- An act of begging or pleading earnestly or urgently; an entreaty, an imploration or imploring, a plea.
verb
- To beg or plead for (something) earnestly or urgently; to beseech.
- To beg or plead that (someone) earnestly or urgently do something; to beseech, to entreat.
- Often followed by for (a thing) or of (a person): to express an earnest or urgent plea.e.g.“That fortnight Rochester passed in intriguing and imploring.”
Words closest in meaning
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