supplicant

What it means

1. begging, pleading, supplicating

In a sentence

It recalled all the vivid hopes and beliefs of her childhood, when she was wont to kneel before some lovely image, till the face seemed to smile encouragement, and the little supplicant felt as if beneath a mother's eye.

1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XVII, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 185

Where it comes from

1. Latinsupplicans“supplicating, bowing down”
2. Englishsupplicant

From Latin supplicans (“supplicating, bowing down”), from supplicō (“kneel, bow down, request”), from sub- (“lower”) + plicō (“fold”).