Other forms: entreated, entreats, entreating
To entreat somebody is to beg them earnestly. Asking with everything you have.
The word is formal and literary, and it belongs to older writing and to scripture, where characters entreat one another constantly. It takes to and a verb. It is a shade more dignified than beg and a great deal more urgent than ask. The noun is entreaty, meaning an earnest request, and it usually appears in the plural, so ignoring somebody's entreaties means refusing repeated pleas.
1verbentreatTo ask someone earnestly and urgently.
“She entreated him to reconsider.”
en-TREAT → begging and begging for a TREAT
The child asks and asks for the treat and will not stop asking.
hooks ontotreat
Proto-Indo-European
*h₁én
Latin
tractāre
Old French
entraictier — to have a conversation with (someone); to concern oneself with (something)
Middle French
entraiter
Anglo-Norman
entraiter
Middle English
entreten — to deal with (someone) in a specified way; to concern oneself with (something); to deal with or give an account of (a topic); to engage in negotiation; to intercede for (someone); to plead with (someone)
English, today
entreat
Built from
The is derived from Late Middle English entreten (“to deal with (someone) in a specified way; to concern oneself with (something); to deal with or give an account of (a topic); to engage in negotiation; to intercede for (someone); to plead with (someone)”), from Anglo-Norman entraiter, entretier (“to concern oneself with (something); to deal with (someone) in a specified manner; to have a conversation with (someone); to negotiate (with someone, or about something)”), Middle French entraiter, entraictier, and Old French entraictier (“to have a conversation with (someone); to concern oneself with (something)”), from en- + traiter (“to be concerned with (something); to treat (someone) in a specified way”) (from Latin tractāre, the of tractō (“to handle, manage; to drag, haul”), from trahō (“to drag, pull; etc.”) (see that entry for the further etymology) + -tō). The is derived from Late Middle English entrete (“agreement; negotiation; treatment of a subject in discourse”), from the verb.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA