rare. poet. [f. SUPPLIANT a.1: see -ANCE.] The action of a suppliant; supplication.
c. 1611. Chapman, Iliad, XVIII. 402. Mightie suppliance, By all their graue men hath bene made. Ibid. (1615), Odyss., VI. 211. If … He should … trie with words of grace, In humblest suppliance, if he might … gaine Her grace.
1773. J. Ross, Fratricide, I. 4 (MS.). Smile on the suppliance of an humbler Bard.
1873. W. S. Mayo, Never Again, xii. The Kaiser smiled, then lifts his child From suppliance at his knee.
So Suppliancy, the condition of a suppliant.
1837. Fraser’s Mag., XVI. 588. The living image of abject suppliancy!
