Supplicant

A supplicant, one who supplicates, is a term to applied to humble petitioners. At the University of Oxford, it refers to students who have qualified but not yet been admitted into their degree (these students are referred to as graduands at Cambridge and most universities other than Oxford).

Within BDSM, the word supplicant is often used to a refer to a submissive applicant, hoping to enter the service of a particular dominant or household.

In the Gor novels of John Norman, a "supplicant" (or "penitent") is a conventional role within a stylized ritual ceremony during which the leaders and prominent inhabitants of a conquered city beg for mercy from their conquerors. A supplicant traditionally wears nothing but a plain white robe (accompanied by a veil in the case of women), and is naked and barefoot beneath the robe, symbolizing a transitional status between freedom and possible slavery (at the whim of the conquerors).

(This entry in the BDSM Dictionary incorporates text from the Supplicant article in Wipipedia.)

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