ENTREA'AT, verb transitive [Latin tracto, to handle, feel, treat, use, manage.]

1. To ask earnestly; to beseech; to petition or pray with urgency; to supplicate; to solicit pressingly; to importune.

Isaac entreated Jehovah for his wife. Genesis 25:1.

2. To prevail on by prayer or solicitation. Hence in the passive form, to be prevailed on; to yield to entreaty.

It were a fruitless attempt to appease a power, whom no prayers could entreat.

3. To treat, in any manner; properly, to use or manage; but I believe, entreat is always applied to persons, as treat is to persons or things. Applied to persons, to entreat is to use, or to deal with; to manifest to others any particular deportment, good or ill.

I will cause the enemy to entreat thee well. Jeremiah 15:1.

The Egyptians evil-entreated us. Deuteronomy 26:1.

[In this application, the prefix en is now dropped, and treat is used.]

4. To entertain; to amuse.

5. To entertain; to receive.