practise
Formspractises, practising, practised
US spellingpractice
Often confused with practice
- 1To do an activity repeatedly in order to build up your skill at it.
Pupils practise their spellings every evening in the week before the test.
He has been practising his serve all week ahead of the tournament.
UsageThe verb is practise, the noun practice. Another verb after it takes -ing: practise speaking (not
incorrect: practise to speak).Similarrehearse
- 2To do something regularly or put it into action as a habit or way of life, such as a religion, a custom, a method, a principle or a piece of advice.
Families in the valley have practised the same farming methods for generations.
The freedom to practise any religion is protected by law.
UsageCommon in practise a religion and the set phrase practise what you preach, do what you advise others to do.
- 3To follow a profession as your career, most often law, medicine or fine art.
Her father practised medicine in a small Yorkshire town for most of his life.
After qualifying as a solicitor, she went on to practise law in Manchester.
UsageUsually with no article: practise law, practise medicine. Also used without an object: she practises as a solicitor.
Less common meanings
- 4To train someone, or make them used to something, through repeated practice.
In church they are taught to love God; after church they are practised to love their neighbour.
1828, Walter Savage Landor, “Lord Brooke and Sir Philip Sidney”UsageThe patterns are practise someone in a skill and practise someone to do something; today train is the usual word.
Note
Landor sets it against taught: in church they are taught to love God, after church they are practised to love their neighbour. Teaching hands over the rule; practising drills it in by doing.
- 5To put someone or something to work for a particular purpose.
Note
In Massinger's The Picture it is Queen Honoria who says she practised Ubaldo and Ricardo to corrupt a good knight's wife: she put the two courtiers to work on that errand. When the object is people used as instruments, the sense sits close to the plotting sense. In modern prose, use or employ says the same thing more plainly.
Checked 4 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
- Philip Massinger wrote The Picture. en.wikipedia.org
- Queen Honoria says she employed Ubaldo and Ricardo to corrupt the knight's wife. elizabethandrama.org
- Ubaldo and Ricardo are courtiers. en.wikipedia.org
- Practised here means employed or put to work. gutenberg.org
- 6To plot together in secret, usually against someone.
UsageThe person plotted against follows against or on: practise against the king.
Note
A use from older English that has dropped out of the language: practising in this way meant scheming, not rehearsing. Present-day writers say plot or conspire, and a modern reader would most likely be puzzled by it.
Practice
Can you tell the meanings of practise apart? Answer 4 quick questions from this page, or write your own sentence and AI will check it.
Origin
Our word continues Middle English practizen, itself a variant of practisen, which came from Middle French pratiser or practiser. That came from Medieval Latin practizo, and that in turn from Late Latin practico ("to do, perform, exercise"), formed from prāctica ("practical affairs, business"). The Latin word traces back to Ancient Greek prāktikḗ, from prāktikós ("practical"), based on prā́ssein ("to do"); its deepest root is a Proto-Indo-European one meaning "to go over, cross".