preach
pronunciation
How to pronounce preach in British English:
UK [priːtʃ]
How to pronounce preach in American English:
US [priːtʃ]
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- Verb:
- deliver a sermon
- speak, plead, or argue in favour of
Word Origin
- preach
- preach: [13] Preach goes back ultimately to Latin praedicāre ‘proclaim’ (source also of English predicament and predicate). Its Old French descendant was prechier, whence English preach (English had actually acquired the word before, directly from Latin in the Anglo-Saxon period, as predician ‘preach’, but this had died out before the Old French word arrived). The semantic shift in the Latin verb from ‘proclaiming’ to ‘preaching’ took place in the early Christian period.=> predicament, predicate
- preach (v.)
- at first in late Old English predician, a loan word from Church Latin; reborrowed 12c. as preachen, from Old French preechier "to preach, give a sermon" (11c., Modern French précher), from Late Latin praedicare "to proclaim publicly, announce" (in Medieval Latin "to preach"), from Latin prae "before" (see pre-) + dicare "to proclaim, to say" (see diction). Related: Preached; preaching. To preach to the converted is recorded from 1867 (form preach to the choir attested from 1979).
Example
- 1. We should practice what we preach .
- 2. Germany will preach thrift and reforms to boost competitiveness .
- 3. When robert got up to preach , the congregation had been there a good while .
- 4. The developed world must not attempt to preach to poorer nations .
- 5. Later that month , tony came to my church to hear me preach .