Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Beseech

Be·seech′ (bē·sēch′), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Besought; p. pr. & vb. n. Beseeching.] [OE. bisechen, biseken (akin to G. besuchen to visit); pref. be- + sechen, seken, to seek. See Seek.] 1. To ask or entreat with urgency; to supplicate; to implore.

I beseech you, punish me not with your hard thoughts. Shak.

But Eve . . . besought his peace. Milton.

Syn. — To beg; to crave. — To Beseech, Entreat, Solicit, Implore, Supplicate. These words agree in marking that sense of want which leads men to beg some favor. To solicit is to make a request, with some degree of earnestness and repetition, of one whom we address as a superior. To entreat implies greater urgency, usually enforced by adducing reasons or arguments. To beseech is still stronger, and belongs rather to the language of poetry and imagination. To implore denotes increased fervor of entreaty, as addressed either to equals or superiors. To supplicate expresses the extreme of entreaty, and usually implies a state of deep humiliation. Thus, a captive supplicates a conqueror to spare his life. Men solicit by virtue of their interest with another; they entreat in the use of reasoning and strong representations; they beseech with importunate earnestness; they implore from a sense of overwhelming distress; they supplicate with a feeling of the most absolute inferiority and dependence.

Be·seech′, n. Solicitation; supplication. [Obs. or Poetic] Shak.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty. Of the others, 1,362 (a word or a single letter each) were inferred by AI from the context by the dictionary’s own rules and are marked with a wavy underline (tap or point at one to see the note); the rest, which could not be inferred with confidence, are left as “?”.