Obtest

Word of the Day for Thursday, May 10, 2012

obtest \ob-TEST\, verb:

1. To supplicate earnestly; beseech.
2. To invoke as witness.
3. To protest.
4. To make supplication; beseech.

I constrain, adjure, obtest and strongly command you.
-- Sir Walter Scott, Guy Mannering

And whosoever she be, even with the form of words which to miserable wretches is granted most exaudible, I pray, and do with those prayers most heartily obtest, which are in the ears of the hearers of them most effectual, that she may never taste of such bitter miseries.
-- Giovanni Boccaccio, Amorous Fiametta

Obtest comes from the Latin roots ob-, a prefix meaning "toward", and the root test, meaning "witness."

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