appeal
noun · verb
Simple meaning
A call to a person or an authority for help, proof or a decision.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
uhpeelSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
əˈpiːl
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A call to a person or an authority for help, proof or a decision; entreaty.
“He made an appeal for volunteers to help at the festival.”
Power to attract or interest.
Resort to physical means; recourse.
verb
To call on (someone) for aid
“I appeal to all of you to help the orphans.”
To call upon another to decide a question controverted, to corroborate a statement, to vindicate one's rights, etc.
To be attractive.
To summon; to challenge.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A2 · Elementary
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A call to a person or an authority for help, proof or a decision; entreaty.
Used this way, appeal is a common word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
“He made an appeal for volunteers to help at the festival.”
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Usage note
It most often appears in the pattern “appeal for …”, which is worth copying when you use it.
Natural pattern: appeal for …
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
How It’s Used
The word’s distinct uses, one example each.
Callnoun
“He made an appeal for volunteers to help at the festival.”
Callverb
“I appeal to all of you to help the orphans.”
More ways to use appeal
- “Their appeal was denied in the superior court.”noun
- “His smile was part of his appeal to her.”noun
- “The idea of a vacation appeals to me.”verb
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
Able to attract interest or draw favorable attention.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A board of officials that are not judicial but are appointed to hear appeals.
A court whose jurisdiction is to review decisions of lower courts or agencies.
One of the twelve federal United States courts of appeals that cover a group of states known as a `circuit'.
A personal attractiveness or interestingness that enables you to influence others.
Attractiveness to the opposite sex.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
- convictionnoun
- verdictnoun
- rulingnoun
- judgementnoun
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API (CC BY-SA 3.0). Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.