appeal

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun An earnest or urgent request, entreaty, or supplication.
• noun A resort to a higher authority or greater power, as for sanction, corroboration, or a decision.
• noun A higher court's review of the correctness of a decision by a lower court.
• noun A case so reviewed.
• noun A request for a higher court to review the decision of a lower court.
• noun The power of attracting or of arousing interest.
• intransitive verb To make an earnest or urgent request, as for help.
• intransitive verb To have recourse, as for corroboration; resort.
• intransitive verb Law To make or request an appeal.
• intransitive verb To be attractive or interesting.
• intransitive verb To request for an appeal of (a case) to a higher court for rehearing.
• idiom (on appeal) In the process of being appealed; while being appealed.

from The Century Dictionary.

• To call; summon; challenge.
• In law: To remove, as a cause, from a lower to a higher judge or court. See appeal, n., 2 .
• Formerly, to charge with a crime before a tribunal; accuse; institute a criminal prosecution against for some heinous offense: with of before the offense charged: as, to appeal a person of felony.
• . To address; offer up, as an appeal.
• To call for aid, mercy, sympathy, or the like; make an earnest ontreaty, or have the effect of an entreaty.
• In law, to refer to a superior judge or court for the decision of a cause depending; specifically, to refer a decision of a lower court or judge to a higher one, for reëxamination and revisal.
• To refer to another person or authority for the decision of a question controverted, or for the corroboration of testimony or facts; in general, to refer to some tribunal explicitly mentioned or implied.
• To have recourse; resort for proof, decision, or settlement: as, to appeal to force.
• [In all senses, with to or unto before the tribunal whose judgment is asked, and from before that whose decision is rejected.]
• noun An address or invocation; a call for sympathy, mercy, aid, or the like; a supplication; an entreaty: as, an appeal for help; an appeal for mercy.
• noun A proceeding taken to reverse a decision by submitting it to the review of a higher authority: as, an appeal to the house from a decision of the chair. In law:
• noun Sometimes used in the above general meaning, so as to include writs of error, certiorari, etc.
• noun Strictly, the removal of a cause or suit from a lower to a higher tribunal, in order that the latter may revise, and, if it seems needful, reverse or amend, the decision of the former.
• noun The mode of procedure by which such removal is effected.
• noun The right of removal to a higher court.
• noun Formerly, a vindictive action at the suit of a party injured when the supposed criminal had been previously acquitted on an indictment or pardoned.
• noun A summons to answer to a charge; a challenge.
• noun A call to another to sanction or witness; a reference to another for proof or decision: as, in an oath a person makes an appeal to the Deity for the truth of his declaration.
• noun Resort or recourse for decision.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• transitive verb To make application for the removal of (a cause) from an inferior to a superior judge or court for a rehearing or review on account of alleged injustice or illegality in the trial below. We say, the cause was appealed from an inferior court.
• transitive verb To charge with a crime; to accuse; to institute a private criminal prosecution against for some heinous crime.
• transitive verb Archaic To summon; to challenge.
• transitive verb obsolete To invoke.
• transitive verb (Law) To apply for the removal of a cause from an inferior to a superior judge or court for the purpose of reëxamination of for decision.
• transitive verb To call upon another to decide a question controverted, to corroborate a statement, to vindicate one's rights, etc.. Hence: To call on one for aid; to make earnest request.
• noun An application for the removal of a cause or suit from an inferior to a superior judge or court for reëxamination or review.
• noun The mode of proceeding by which such removal is effected.
• noun The right of appeal.
• noun An accusation; a process which formerly might be instituted by one private person against another for some heinous crime demanding punishment for the particular injury suffered, rather than for the offense against the public.
• noun An accusation of a felon at common law by one of his accomplices, which accomplice was then called an approver. See approvement.
• noun A summons to answer to a charge.
• noun A call upon a person or an authority for proof or decision, in one's favor; reference to another as witness; a call for help or a favor; entreaty.
• noun Resort to physical means; recourse.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• verb transitive, obsolete To accuse (someone of something).
• verb transitive, law To apply for the removal of a cause from an inferior to a superior judge or court for the purpose of reexamination of for decision. --Tomlins. WP