A person who begs humbly for something — usually from someone with power over them, or from a god. It means the same as supplicant; the two words are twins, arriving in English by slightly different roads. It is a literary and old-fashioned word. You meet it in poetry, in translations of Greek tragedy, in the Bible, in histories of kings and courts. A modern newspaper would not use it. Its natural picture is someone on their knees, hands out, asking for mercy or help they have no right to demand. Suppliant is also an adjective, meaning "begging, pleading" — "a suppliant gesture", "suppliant hands", "a suppliant tone". In fact many writers use the adjective more often than the noun. What matters most is the feeling: a suppliant is not a customer making a request, and not an equal asking a favour. The word carries powerlessness. Modern writers sometimes use it with a bitter edge to criticise a situation — "the country was reduced to a suppliant at the bank's door" — meaning the country had lost all its bargaining power and could only beg.

懇求者、哀求的人（尤指向掌權者或神明跪求的人）；也可當形容詞，指「乞求的、哀求的」，如 suppliant hands 哀求的雙手。屬於文學、古典用語，現代口語不用。