implore

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin implōrō (“to invoke or entreat with tears”),^[2][3][4] perhaps through Middle French implorer, as Barnhart, Merriam-Webster Unabridged, Hoad and the Shorter Oxford allow,^[5][6][7][8] and Etymonline and Skeat also name French as a source.^[9][10] The OED gives Latin alone, and records the French verb only from 1549, later than the English one,^[2] although the Anglo-Norman form is recorded from about 1270.^[11] The Latin verb is formed from in- (“on, upon, toward”), assimilated to im-, and plōrō (“to weep, cry out, lament”).^[9][5][4] De Vaan finds no etymology for this verb,^[12] and Etymonline calls it of unknown origin,^[9] while Klein and Merriam-Webster Unabridged take it as imitative.^[4][6] It is also the source of deplore and explore.^[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

To make touching supplications, used without an object: before 1513, in William Dunbar's poems.^[2][5] Barnhart dates the Dunbar use to 1500–20,^[5] Etymonline has about 1500,^[9] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged gives about 1540 for the transitive use.^[6]

Semantic evolution

Etymonline takes the literal sense of the Latin verb to be pleading tearfully, invoking with weeping,^[9] and the OED's definition of the transitive use, begging for aid, favour or pardon, still speaks of tearful or touching entreaties.^[2] That use is recorded from about 1550, in a translation of Polydore Vergil's history,^[2] and Hoad likewise has "beg or pray for" in the 16th century.^[7] With a person as object, to beseech someone to do something, it is recorded before 1616, in Shakespeare's Measure for Measure,^[2][7] and only from 1850 is it used of uttering a plea in words.^[2][8] A noun implore, an entreaty, was used from 1590, in Spenser's Faerie Queene, to 1607;^[2] Johnson (1755) entered it as no longer in use, and defined the verb as calling on someone in supplication and as asking or begging.^[14]

Timeline

• before 1513 – intransitive, to make touching supplications.^[2][5]
• c. 1550 – transitive, to beg for aid, favour or pardon.^[2]
• 1590 – noun, an entreaty (obsolete by 1607).^[2]
• before 1616 – to beseech a person to do something.^[2]
• 1850 – to utter as a supplication.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To beg a person earnestly; to beseech, entreat: She implored the guard to open the gate.^[15][6][2]
2. To ask earnestly or pitifully for something: The villagers implored the governor's help.^[15][6][2]
3. Without an object, to make entreaties; to supplicate.^[2][8]
4. To say as a plea: 'Stay with us,' he implored.^[2][8]

Noun

1. (obsolete, 1590–1607) An entreaty.^[2][8][14]

Word family

• imploration
• implorer
• imploringly
• implorable
• imploringness
• unimplored
• unimplorable

Related words

• deplorable
• deplore
• explore

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
10. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
12. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
13. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
14. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
15. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins