What's the difference between petition and pray?

Petition


Definition:

  • (n.) A prayer; a supplication; an imploration; an entreaty; especially, a request of a solemn or formal kind; a prayer to the Supreme Being, or to a person of superior power, rank, or authority; also, a single clause in such a prayer.
  • (n.) A formal written request addressed to an official person, or to an organized body, having power to grant it; specifically (Law), a supplication to government, in either of its branches, for the granting of a particular grace or right; -- in distinction from a memorial, which calls certain facts to mind; also, the written document.
  • (v. t.) To make a prayer or request to; to ask from; to solicit; to entreat; especially, to make a formal written supplication, or application to, as to any branch of the government; as, to petition the court; to petition the governor.
  • (v. i.) To make a petition or solicitation.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Responding to a “We the People” petition, launched after Snowden’s initial leaks were published in the Guardian two years ago, the Obama administration on Tuesday reiterated its belief that he should face criminal charges for his actions.
  • (2) • Queen Margaret Union, one of the University of Glasgow's two student unions, says 200 students there are marching on the principal's office at the moment to present an anti-cuts petition.
  • (3) The bench rejected the petition seeking prosecution for offending Hindus, saying it was a work of art and citing India's tradition of graphic sexual iconography.
  • (4) Some art experts have petitioned against Seracini drilling through the Vasari fresco, claiming any paint found behind might have been left by another artist.
  • (5) Nearly 740,000 people have signed a petition calling for an arms embargo against Saudi Arabia, organised by the campaign group Avaaz.
  • (6) Monday's petition showdown is a chance to demonstrate they have the popular support to back up those claims.
  • (7) Cameron made clear in his speech that Britain remains committed to the individual right to petition.
  • (8) Differently from generalised non convulsive seizures (like petit mal absences), their first appearance has no typical age limit, however, their proportion to other forms of seizures increases in adolescence and adults especially between the third and fifth decade of life.
  • (9) Induction of petite (cytoplasmic-respiration-deficient, rho-,rho-) mutations in yeast and deletion of mitochondrial drug-resistance genetic markers were compared after after treatment with ethidium and the corresponding photoaffinity probe, ethidium azide.
  • (10) Signing up Round-robin emails encouraging web users to sign e-petitions have attracted hundreds of thousands of signatures.
  • (11) Releasing Eric Garner grand jury papers 'would help restore public trust' Read more A petition from the the New York Civil Liberties Union and others had called for the release of the grand jury transcripts, including testimony by Daniel Pantaleo, the New York police officer involved in the incident.
  • (12) In terms of education, a representative of the Born Free Foundation once pointed out, out of millions of visitors to zoos in Europe, only 2% signed a bushmeat petition.
  • (13) Of course, saying this even while petitioning for easier repayment on Greece's mountain of debt is just another example of austerity's topsy-turvyism.
  • (14) In a relatively high proportion of the transformants, disruption of the 17-kDa gene was accompanied by the appearance of a second mutation causing a petite phenotype.
  • (15) Ursula K Le Guin, who gained significant author support for her petition calling for "the principle of copyright, which is directly threatened by the settlement, [to] be honoured and upheld in the United States", also opted out.
  • (16) In disorders of petit mal epilepsy and parkinsonian tremor, centrally and peripherally observable rhythmic patterns are due to network oscillations of thalamocortical cells.
  • (17) It’s time to speak out, to bring this impunity to an end, time for men to change their behaviour rather than for women to adapt to it,” the petition says.
  • (18) None had petit mal, confirming its rarity in the elderly.
  • (19) Ureterosigmoidostomy with anti-reflux technique (Petit-Leadbetter procedure) was performed in 12 children, mainly after failure to repair an exstrophy.
  • (20) With 66,000 signatures on a petition after four days, immigration minister Peter Dutton cancelled Allen’s visa.

Pray


Definition:

  • (n. & v.) See Pry.
  • (v. i.) To make request with earnestness or zeal, as for something desired; to make entreaty or supplication; to offer prayer to a deity or divine being as a religious act; specifically, to address the Supreme Being with adoration, confession, supplication, and thanksgiving.
  • (v. t.) To address earnest request to; to supplicate; to entreat; to implore; to beseech.
  • (v. t.) To ask earnestly for; to seek to obtain by supplication; to entreat for.
  • (v. t.) To effect or accomplish by praying; as, to pray a soul out of purgatory.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) People praying, voicing their views and heart, were met with disdain and a level of force exceeding what was needed.
  • (2) Facebook Twitter Pinterest A child praying at the vigil site for Freddie Gray in Baltimore.
  • (3) I am being prayed for in the woods of northern California!
  • (4) When he had those Aids I went to my synagogue and I prayed for him.” Sterling said he admired Johnson, 53, as a “good” man, then contradicted himself.
  • (5) "I've been praying and praying to Papa," Nan cried, "but it feels like He isn't listening."
  • (6) Facebook Twitter Pinterest Muslims pray at the Al Khalil mosque in Molenbeek.
  • (7) She comes to church with me; she doesn’t pray in the way I do, but she listens.
  • (8) They will whip you if you don’t pray.” In Damascus there is a new industry of “facilitators” who offer advice to Syrians who want to get out.
  • (9) A few metres away, Francisco-Javier Muñoz, a lawyer originally from Spain, was praying.
  • (10) Since the allegations became public, fans have taken to holding up homemade signs at Florida State games: "We Support Famous Jameis", "Jameis is Innocent," and "In Jameis Christ We Pray".
  • (11) New Afghan national police officers pray during their graduation ceremony.
  • (12) The NYPD's demographics unit assembled databases on where Muslims lived, shopped, worked and prayed.
  • (13) I squeezed my eyes shut and prayed for an electromagnetic storm that would cancel out every mistake I'd ever made.'
  • (14) As she gazes down from her plane at the sprawling Amazon jungle below, she will hope and pray that, with a number of giant infrastructure projects planned in the region, history is not about to repeat itself.
  • (15) The Palestinians see this as Jewish encroachment on the site, the holiest in Judaism and the third holiest in Islam, while Jewish activists like Glick say they are being discriminated against by limiting their chances to pray atop the mount.
  • (16) The general atmosphere was that there was no point in summoning the police – the policeman is a local settler from Kiryat Arba who comes to pray with the Hebron settlers at the Tomb of the Patriarchs on Fridays.
  • (17) It stands 25km north of Damascus, near the ancient Saydnaya monastery where Christians and Muslims have prayed together for centuries.
  • (18) My mother prays for me,” said Betancourt, a Honduran.
  • (19) Barcelona’s miracle worker Lionel Messi leaves Arsenal praying for one | Barney Ronay Read more City continue to monitor Messi’s situation should he become unsettled.
  • (20) Facebook Twitter Pinterest A woman prays in front of the Flame of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Tokyo, a memorial for the victims of the atomic bombings in 1945.