sue

Behind the courtroom verb is a word for following: Middle English seuen, from Old French and ultimately Latin sequi, "to follow," the same source as suit and the doublet segue. The person sued is the direct object, and the grievance comes after for: sue a seller for a faulty product. The passive is just as natural, as in Warren Bert Kimberly's History of West Australia (1897): "He was sued … for slander."

Here the object is what is sought, not a person. One sues for peace or for a truce. That construction separates it from the courtroom verb, where the person comes first and for introduces the grievance. The fixed phrase sue for peace shows this use at work. It is said of a side that has decided it can no longer fight on and asks the victor for terms.

Courtship as pleading: this obsolete use is close kin to the "petition" meaning, with a suitor in place of an envoy. It now belongs only to older texts. In new writing, "he sued her" would be understood as a lawsuit, so court or woo is the safe choice when the romantic sense is meant.

A falconer's word, and its subject is the bird itself: a hawk sues its beak, wiping it clean across a perch or branch, typically after feeding. Outside falconry the verb would be heard as the legal one. In general writing it needs its setting (a hawk, a perch, a meal just finished) to be read correctly.

Nautical usage makes the vessel the object and the falling water the force. The tide sues a ship, and a ship is sued on a bank. The word belongs to seafaring language, and stranding by the ebb is exactly what it names. Elsewhere, aground or high and dry says the same thing without inviting a legal reading.