The word entreat has appeared in five articles on NYTimes.com in the past year, including on Aug. 8 in the Opinion essay “In Paris, I Get Judged on What I Speak, Not How I Look” by Euny Hong:
“La Dernière Classe” is about an idle schoolboy, Frantz, who lives in Alsace around the time of the Franco-Prussian War, circa 1870. He turns up late for school one day and finds his teacher Monsieur Hamel looking grave. The teacher explains that Germany has taken over the region, that he will not be seeing them again and that all instruction commencing the next day will be in German. “This is the very last French lesson you will have,” says the teacher, “so I entreat you to pay attention.”
Frantz listens to his French grammar lesson for the very first time, wondering why he never appreciated the elegance of the past participle. He tells the reader, “Monsieur Hamel told us that French was the most beautiful language in the world, the clearest, the most solid: that we should protect it and never forget it, because even if a people become enslaved, as long as they retain their language, it’s like a key to the prison.”
Daily Word Challenge
Can you correctly use the word entreat in a sentence?
Based on the definition and example provided, write a sentence using today’s Word of the Day and share it as a comment on this article. It is most important that your sentence makes sense and demonstrates that you understand the word’s definition, but we also encourage you to be creative and have fun.
If you want a better idea of how entreat can be used in a sentence, read these usage examples on Vocabulary.com. You can also visit this guide to learn how to use IPA symbols to show how different words are pronounced.
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