Soliciting

How to spell soliciting

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce soliciting

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does soliciting mean?

1. verbAsking for or trying to obtain something, such as money, support, or business, in an insistent way.

Soliciting in a sentence

• The charity volunteers were soliciting donations outside the railway station.

• Company policy bans staff from soliciting private business during work hours.

Where does soliciting come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin verb sollicitare, which literally meant 'to stir up' or 'to disturb thoroughly', and behind it lay the adjective sollicitus, meaning 'agitated' or 'anxious'. That adjective was itself built from sollus, meaning 'whole' or 'entire', and citus, 'set in motion' or 'roused', the past participle of ciere, 'to move'. The original idea, then, was of something that wholly stirs you up, which over time softened into the sense of urging, pressing, or earnestly requesting. English took it in through Old French solliciter in the fifteenth century, first carrying the notion of disturbing or troubling someone and later settling into the modern meaning of asking for something insistently. A useful spelling reminder is that the single l and single c sit between the vowels (so-LI-cit), so resist the temptation to double them, and note that the root shares its 'cit' element with words like excite and incite, all about being moved or stirred.

How the word is built

• sol- (from sollus: whole)
• -licit- (from citus: moved, roused)
• -ing (present participle suffix)