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solicit

UK/səˈlɪsɪt/US/səˈlɪsɪt/
verbC2Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #10,005 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: solicited, soliciting, solicits

To solicit is to ask formally for money, help or support. Solicit donations, solicit views, unsolicited advice.

Unsolicited is the commoner form: an unsolicited email is one nobody asked for, and the word appears in every rule about marketing. In several jurisdictions, soliciting is also a specific offence relating to sex work in public.

Definitions of solicit

  1. 1verbsolicitTo ask formally for money, help or support.C2

    “The council will solicit the views of local residents before approving the plan.”

solicit is an asking.

Where it comes from

Latin sollicitare means to disturb or urge, from sollicitus, agitated — sollus, whole, plus citus, moved.

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *solh₂-

  2. Latin

    sollicitō — stir, disturb; look after

  3. Old French

    soliciter

  4. Middle English

    soliciten

  5. English, today

    solicit

Built from

  • sollicitus · Latin — agitated, anxious, punctilious (literally “thoroughly moved”)
  • sollus · Latin — whole, entire
  • cieō · Latin — shake, excite, cite, to put in motion

From Middle English soliciten, solliciten, from Old French soliciter, solliciter, borrowed from Latin sollicitō (“stir, disturb; look after”), from sollicitus (“agitated, anxious, punctilious”) literally “thoroughly moved”, from sollus (“whole, entire”) + perfect passive participle of cieō (“shake, excite, cite, to put in motion”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

solicit in the wild

  • People involved in political fundraising, soliciting donations, or otherwise involved in the financial side of a political campaign may be referred to as a bagman.

    Bagman

  • Garden leave often overlaps with or supplements non-compete clauses, non-solicit clauses or confidentiality obligations, preventing the employee from taking information or client relationships to a competitor.

    Garden leave

  • When Xtra! magazine from Toronto launched an Ottawa edition, Capital Xtra!, in 1993, GO Info tried to become more competitive in content, and to solicit corporate advertising.

    GO Info

  • Kerb crawling and soliciting in a public place are legal in New Zealand.

    Kerb crawler

  • The prize committee does not solicit nominations and the decision on award is made in closed meeting.

    Arts Council Norway Honorary Award

1 / 2

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the cieō family

excited

solicit — used about once every 5,406 pages · #10,005 · point at the bar for the others

  • solicitude
  • solicitation