An entreaty is an earnest, humble request or plea. When you make an entreaty, you're asking with real emotion and urgency, hoping the other person will understand how much their answer matters to you. The word implies deep feeling behind the request, whether that's hope, desperation, or sincere need.

Picture a student making an entreaty to their teacher for one more day to finish a project because their computer crashed. Or imagine a character in a story falling to their knees in entreaty, begging the king to spare an innocent person. The word carries a sense of seriousness and sometimes desperation.

Entreaty differs from a casual request. You might request a glass of water, but you'd make an entreaty for something that really matters to you, like asking your parents to reconsider a decision or pleading with a friend to forgive you after a serious argument. The word suggests you're appealing not just to logic but to the other person's compassion and understanding.

When someone ignores your entreaties, they're refusing to listen even though you've asked with genuine feeling. The verb form is entreat: “She entreated him to stay and hear her out.”