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petition

If you're angry about the new rule that you have to wear bright pink shoes to work every day, why not write up a petition, get all your co-workers to sign it, and submit it to your boss.

Petition comes from the Anglo-Norman word peticiun, meaning "demand, request," and when you petition someone, you ask them to consider your request. If you write up a statement, say against the town's approval of a new carnival district, and collect signatures from 100 neighbors to turn in to the city government, that's a petition. If you pray to the carnival gods to reign down ruin on the carnival, that's also a petition — and no signatures needed.

DEFINITIONS OF: petition

n a formal message requesting something that is submitted to an authority

Synonyms:: postulation, request

Types:: show 16 types...; hide 16 types...; application
a verbal or written request for assistance or employment or admission to a school; appeal, collection, ingathering, solicitation
request for a sum of money; demand
an urgent or peremptory request; job application
an application for a job; credit application
an application for a line of credit; loan application
an application to borrow money; patent application
an application for sole rights to an invention; whip-round
(British) solicitation of money usually for a benevolent purpose; challenge
a demand by a sentry for a password or identification; ultimatum
a final peremptory demand; insistence, insisting
continual and persistent demands; call, claim
a demand especially in the phrase "the call of duty"; requisition
the act of requiring; an authoritative request or demand, especially by a military or public authority that takes something over (usually temporarily) for military or public use; call
a demand for a show of hands in a card game; call, margin call
a demand by a broker that a customer deposit enough to bring his margin up to the minimum requirement; pay claim, wage claim
the wage demanded from management for workers by their union representatives

Type of:: content, message, subject matter, substance
what a communication that is about something is about

n reverent petition to a deity

Synonyms:: orison, prayer

Types:: show 11 types...; hide 11 types...; prayer wheel
a cylinder with prayers written on it; each revolution counts as uttering the prayers; used especially by Buddhists in Tibet; benediction, blessing
a ceremonial prayer invoking divine protection; collect
a short prayer generally preceding the lesson in the Church of Rome or the Church of England; commination
prayers proclaiming God's anger against sinners; read in the Church of England on Ash Wednesday; deprecation
a prayer to avert or remove some evil or disaster; blessing, grace, thanksgiving
a short prayer of thanks before a meal; intercession
a prayer to God on behalf of another person; invocation, supplication
a prayer asking God's help as part of a religious service; requiescat
a prayer for the repose of the soul of a dead person; benison
a spoken blessing; rogation
a solemn supplication ceremony prescribed by the church

Type of:: asking, request
the verbal act of requesting

v write a petition for something to somebody; request formally and in writing

Types:: supplicate
make a humble, earnest petition

Type of:: bespeak, call for, quest, request
express the need or desire for; ask for

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