These words refer to oral or written statements asking someone to grant a wish or fulfil a need. Request is the most general and informal. Unless contravened by context, it suggests courtesy and genuine desire, but not necessary certainty that what is asked will be granted: a request that he be allowed to accompany her to the dance; able to supply on request any book in print; a disc jockey who opened his programmes by playing requests ; a written request that she recommend him for the scholarship. An appeal , if verbally made, would involve an urgent request for aid: appeals for help that rang through the burning building. It may imply also the dissatisfied seeking out of another opinion: an appeal to the rest of the group to settle their disagreement. In reference to written requests , appeal stresses a formal or urgent turning to a higher authority: an appeal to the Supreme Court for a reversal of the decision. The word may also be used to indicate the arousing of special motives in the person addressed, not necessarily by verbal means: an appeal to his sense of fair play; an appeal to the average citizen’s prurient interests. One form of appeal which can be made by voice or gesture occurs in sport: The bowler raised his arms in mute appeal while the wicketkeeper yelled "Howzat?"

Invitation cannot suggest a request for aid and is completely lacking in any sense of urgency. It suggests, rather, the making of a courteous offer to someone either of hospitality or some other kindness or benefit: an invitation to join him for a drink after the meeting; an invitation to attend their wedding; an invitation to join the faculty as a full professor. The word has a less concrete use for an appeal to specific motives in the person or group singled out for attention: a look that was an invitation to help himself; an unenforceable regulation that was in invitation to lawbreaking.

The remaining words are mostly restricted in meaning to written request . Requisition is the most formal of these, specifically indicating a detailed statement of the need for food, supplies or shelter: putting in a requisition for new ammunition belts and water bottles. Petition is close to appeal in suggesting the submission of an urgent request to a higher authority. In a legal context, however, it may imply simply throwing oneself on the mercy of the authority, rather than any re-arguing of the case: an emotional petition to the judge for clemency. Or it can refer specifically to the institution of court proceedings concerning divorce or bankruptcy; one files a petition in either case. Outside the legal context, it usually denotes the gathering of many signatures in support of a request addressed to a government or local government authority: suburban residents who organized a petition to the council to rescind its decision to permit the establishment of a quarry in their area. In its older sense of a simply request , petition is now seldom used and would tend to sound stuffy. Application suggests most strongly a routine written request for consideration: a three-page job application ; submitting his application for a scholarship; making application to join the lodge; an application to enter the contest.

These words are concerned with the situation in which one person proposes the solution of a need or desire, leaving the person addressed free to decline or accept the proposal. Request implies the use of a courteous manner in expressing a need: He requested help from the librarian to locate the book he wanted; requesting direction from a near-by policeman. As a verb, the word remains somewhat formal and is sometimes used as a euphemism for a more imperative expression: requesting his immediate resignation. Ask is much more informal and more general than request and does not necessarily imply courtesy of expression at all: curtly asking the waiter for a glass of water. Whereas both request and ask suggest, in themselves, some unfulfilled need or desire on the part of the speaker, invite very often suggests that someone else is given permission to fulfil such a desire: a sign inviting passers-by to browse about the shop if they wished; requesting that he be permitted to attend the party, even though he had not been invited .

Seek contrasts with the foregoing words in suggesting any kind of action taken in gaining help or fulfilling a desire, without being restricted in possible meanings to the requesting of help in speech or writing: seeking approval in the faces of the audience as he spoke. Furthermore, while request often suggests a one-to-one relationship of an appealer and one appealed to, seek points to an effort to get an answer from a number of sources: seeking directions from everyone along the way who seemed the least bit friendly. Seek may also imply an insistent, rather than a courteous, manner: seeking the necessary document through a bureaucratic maze.

Apply , as now used, suggests mostly a written statement addressed to an institution expressing a desire to be considered for a position: applying for a job, a scholarship, a holiday, a charge account. Solicit suggests a canvass of likely prospects in the attempt to gain some consideration, often of a business nature: carnival spruikers soliciting onlookers to buy tickets to the sideshow; prostitutes soliciting every well-dressed man who walked their way. In more general uses, comparable to those of request, solicit now seems archaic, if not clouded over by unpleasant connotations from its more common use: a teacher soliciting the earnest attention of his students.