Definition of "asking"

It was as when some great gentle dog brings in a limp and bedraggled prize dug from the yard and, laying it at one’s feet, looks up at one with soft asking eyes.

1924, Edna Ferber, So Big‎, New York: Grosset & Dunlap, page 109

[…] all of them looked at each other in an asking way.

1942, Zora Neale Hurston, chapter 12, in Dust Tracks on a Road‎, New York: Arno Press and The New York Times, published 1969, page 235

The large eyes sought his own, as if asking for help, and yet unable to do more than look their mute asking.

1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “An Evening Alone”, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], page 303

After many askings, pleadings, and episodes, all leading to nothing, she finally slumped down at the side of a well in a village where she was unknown.

2005, Beth Miller, The Woman's Book of Resilience: 12 Qualities to Cultivate, page 125