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''pray'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

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''pray'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260903164037-00-⌔

pray - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Verb

pray (third-person singular simple present prays, present participle praying, simple past and past participle prayed)

  • (religion) To direct words, thoughts, or one’s attention to a deity or any higher being, for the sake of adoration, thanks, petition for help, etc.
    • ✤ Muslims pray in the direction of Mecca.
    • ✤ * Pray to the small gods and hope that they may hear thee. Yet what mercy should the small gods have, who themselves made Death and Pain; or shall they restrain their old hound Time for thee?*1
    • ✤ This can’t happen. You can’t die! You’re the Emissary! […] Captain, I know my beliefs make you uncomfortable around me sometimes, and that maybe that’s why you keep me at arm’s length. But I don’t care about that right now, and I am going to pray, because I don’t know what else to do.2
    • ✤ The critically low level of rainfall in the second half of 2020 – approaching 50% year on year for November – led the religious affairs directorate to instruct imams and their congregations to pray for rain last month.3
  • To humbly beg a person for aid or their time.
  • (obsolete) To ask earnestly for; to seek to obtain by supplication; to entreat for.
    • ✤ I know not how to pray your patience.4
  • To wish or hope strongly for a particular outcome.
    • ✤ She is praying that the Red Sox will win tonight.
  • (obsolete or law) To implore, to entreat, to request.
    • ✤ They prayd him sit, and gave him for to feed
      Such homely what as serves the simple clowne,
      That doth despise the dainties of the towne […]      5
    • ✤ In time of drought the Abchases of the Caucasus sacrifice an ox to Ap-hi, the god of thunder and lightning, and an old man prays him to send rain, thunder, and lightning, telling him that the crops are parched.6
    • ✤ I humbly pray to the Honorable Court for the order for the removal of the publication which contains fake news to be granted.7

Adverb

pray (not comparable)

  • (archaic or formal) Please; used to make a polite request
    • ✤ * pray silence for…*
    • ✤ “Pray, Mr. Knightley,” said Emma, who had been smiling to herself through a great part of this speech, “how do you know that Mr. Martin did not speak yesterday?”8
    • ✤ * Pray don’t ask me why, pray don’t be sorry, pray don’t be vexed with me, I have nothing to do with it indeed!*9
    • ✤ Well, Major, pray tell us your adventures, for you have frightened us dreadfully.**10
    • ✤ Thank you. I am sorry to have interrupted you. Pray continue your most interesting statement.11
  • Alternative form of pray tell (“I ask you”).
    • ✤ Shall I be moved to love you, pray,/By hints that I must soon decay?/No woman’s won by being told/How quickly she is growing old[…]12
    • ✤ He is a South American, so perhaps revolutionary spirit courses through Francis’s veins. But what, pray, does the Catholic church want with doubt?13

Etymology 1

Inherited from Middle English preien, borrowed from Anglo-Norman preier, from Old French proiier, from Late Latin precāre, from Latin precārī, from prex (“request, petition, prayer”), from Proto-Italic ﹡preks, from Proto-Indo-European ﹡preḱ- (“to request, ask”). Displaced native Old English gebiddan.

Cognate via Indo-European of Old English frignan, fricgan, German fragen, Dutch vragen. Compare deprecate, imprecate, precarious.

Pronunciation

  • enPR: prā, IPA: /pɹeɪ/
  • Audio (US): 🔊
  • Rhymes: -eɪ
  • Homophone: prey

Etymology 2

Ellipsis of I pray you, I pray thee, whence also prithee.

Printed 2026-09-03.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

  1. 1905, Lord Dunsany [i.e., Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany], The Gods of Pegāna, London: [Charles] Elkin Mathews, […], →OCLC: ↩

  2. 1995, David Mack & John J. Ordover, “Starship Down”, in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, season 4, episode 7, spoken by Kira Nerys (Nana Visitor): ↩

  3. 2021 January 13, Bethan McKernan, “Turkey drought: Istanbul could run out of water in 45 days”, in The Guardian ‎: ↩

  4. 1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “Much Adoe about Nothing”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene i]: ↩

  5. 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book VI, Canto IX”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 7: ↩

  6. 1890, James George Frazer, The Golden Bough, volume 2, page 370: ↩

  7. 2021, Yang di-Pertuan Agong, “Schedule”, in Emergency (Essential Powers) (No. 2) Ordinance 2021 ‎, archived from the original on 20 July 2023, page 31: ↩

  8. 1815 December (indicated as 1816), [Jane Austen], chapter VIII, in Emma: […], volume I, London: […] [Charles Roworth and James Moyes] for John Murray, →OCLC, page 124: ↩

  9. 1840 April – 1841 November, Charles Dickens, “Chapter the Tenth”, in The Old Curiosity Shop. A Tale. […], volume I, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1841, →OCLC, page 144: ↩

  10. 1845, Frederick Marryat, “Chapter XXI”, in The Mission: ↩

  11. 1892, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Engineer’s Thumb: ↩

  12. 1981, A. D. Hope, “His Coy Mistress to Mr. Marvell”, in A Book of Answers: ↩

  13. 20 September 2013, Martina Hyde, “Is the pope Catholic?”, in The Guardian ‎: ↩

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