What's the difference between entreat and importune?

Entreat


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To treat, or conduct toward; to deal with; to use.
  • (v. t.) To treat with, or in respect to, a thing desired; hence, to ask earnestly; to beseech; to petition or pray with urgency; to supplicate; to importune.
  • (v. t.) To beseech or supplicate successfully; to prevail upon by prayer or solicitation; to persuade.
  • (v. t.) To invite; to entertain.
  • (v. i.) To treat or discourse; hence, to enter into negotiations, as for a treaty.
  • (v. i.) To make an earnest petition or request.
  • (n.) Entreaty.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Flattered, entreated, begged by the rest of the committee, he did not yield: "Recommendations are recommendations, there it is"; and "I honestly believe it's all there"; "I promise you I have done my very best"; "if I hadn't thought my recommendations were fit for purpose, I would not have made them"; "with all due respect, I could not have done any more than I did".
  • (2) He spends most of the book entreating actors and directors, whom he compares to generals, to master their craft.
  • (3) Children in the 1980s were entreated to do the same by the BBC TV series Why Don't You, which somewhat confusingly called on its viewers to "switch off your TV set, and go do something less boring instead".
  • (4) I have tried to distract, grab and run but my little one slays me with his doleful eyes, entreating: "What if I get an ouchy in the playground?"
  • (5) But as the final entry in Hansberry's journal entreated: "If anything should happen - before 'tis done - may I trust that all commas and periods will be placed and someone will complete my thoughts.
  • (6) Front and center will be whether the president has obstructed justice – first, by entreating Comey to “let go” of the Flynn investigation, and second, by firing Comey.
  • (7) Rather than reach out he retreats, and roils at the fickleness of everything – entreating media boosters to validate him, telling the colleagues they have no right to desert him, while pondering who he can jettison in order to save himself.
  • (8) 9.33pm BST 89 min: Diego Simeone entreats his own support to make noise by throwing some frantic semaphore shapes.
  • (9) Another campaign poster, referring to the clan name of the late leader, entreats: "Do it for Madiba, vote ANC!"
  • (10) And he knew that when people went to WikiLeaks, they weren’t going to find damaging information about [his allies] Steve Bannon or Reince Priebus or the RNC [Republican National Committee].” Donald Trump to Russia: hack and publish Hillary Clinton's 'missing' emails Read more At his last press conference, in July, Trump effectively asked a foreign power to carry out cyber-espionage, entreating Russia to find Clinton’s 30,000 “missing” emails , from the private server she used while secretary of state.

Importune


Definition:

  • (a.) To request or solicit, with urgency; to press with frequent, unreasonable, or troublesome application or pertinacity; hence, to tease; to irritate; to worry.
  • (a.) To import; to signify.
  • (v. i.) To require; to demand.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Carr claimed that Kammerer's sexual importuning had become threatening, and in Riverside Park on August 13 1944, he defended himself with his boy scout knife, fatally stabbing Kammerer twice in the chest.
  • (2) The proceedings of animal body waste salvage plants are-as you know-connected with intense smell importunities of the immediate environment.
  • (3) He played in Harold Pinter's A Slight Ache at the Arts theatre and went on tour as Gerald Popkiss in Ben Travers's Rookery Nook, before giving an irresistible Roland Maule, the importunate playwright from Uckfield, in Coward's Present Laughter, at the Vaudeville in 1965.
  • (4) In his recent book, Marriage of Inconvenience , Robert Brownell claims that Effie was something of an adventurer, encouraged by her importunate family to marry Ruskin to forestall her father’s bankruptcy.
  • (5) Had I not been so concerned by this importune turn of events, I might have wondered why two of my oldest friends hadn't told me they were together or invited me to their wedding, and so I resolved to work humbly for Herbert for the next 12 years.
  • (6) This paper discusses three cases of importunate fracture, with skin breakdown and exposed fracture fragments, and their treatment with tobramycin beads (and in two cases, external fixateurs).
  • (7) If we take the view that German aggression above all else started the first world war, we may conclude the US should take a hard line against contemporary Chinese importuning.
  • (8) When she was four, her father had to relocate to Pennsylvania after importuning young male members of his staff.
  • (9) Neither are the tense years of the cold war, when Finland pursued a delicate balancing act between the importunate demands of its giant neighbour and its natural attachment to the west.