prayer
Pluralprayers
- 1A single act of praying, such as giving thanks, asking for help, or addressing a spiritual being.
The congregation offered a prayer for the flood victims.
Her grandmother's prayers always lasted longer than the sermon.
Similarinvocation, petition, supplication, intercession
Note
Here prayer becomes something you can count and offer up: you offer a prayer, say your prayers, ask for someone's prayers. Dave Barry's Year in review (2020) plays on the gap between a wish and a prayer. The words are the same, but a prayer is said with far less confidence that it will come true.
- 2The practice of communicating with one's God or with some other spiritual being.
For many believers, prayer is as much a daily discipline as exercise.
The monastery devotes several hours each day to silent prayer.
Similardevotion, worship, supplication, communion
Note
The word replaced an older English one. Prayer came through Middle English preiere and Old French preiere from Medieval Latin precāria, and it displaced native Old English ġebed. In this uncountable use it takes no article: through prayer, in silent prayer, a life of prayer. That missing article is how you tell it from a single act of praying.
- 3
- 4A meeting or service held for the purpose of praying.
Evening prayer at the chapel draws a small but faithful crowd.
The community gathers for prayer every Friday at noon.
Similarservice, worship, devotions
Note
For the gathering, prayer often drops its article, the way church and school do: Grandpa goes to prayer, not to a prayer. With an article it picks out one particular meeting. It pairs naturally with times of day, as in morning prayer or evening prayer, when the service is a fixed one.
- 5The remotest hope or chance, used mainly in negative phrases such as doesn't have a prayer.
Down by twenty points with two minutes left, they didn't have a prayer.
The bill doesn't have a prayer of passing this session.
Similarchance, hope, shot, prospect
Note
An idiom that lives almost entirely in the negative: not have a prayer, without a prayer. It is often followed by of and an -ing verb, as in doesn't have a prayer of winning. It is always singular in this use. The force is that success would take nothing short of a miracle, so positive uses (they might have a prayer) are rare and sound wry.
- 6A request or petition, especially a formal one addressed to an authority.
The complaint closes with a prayer for damages and court costs.
Their petition to Parliament carried the prayer that the tax be repealed.
Similarrequest, petition, plea, appeal, demand
Note
The courtroom keeps this secular use alive. A plea addressed to "your honor" can end by stating its prayer, often followed by a that-clause setting out exactly what is asked: my prayer, that all here be set free. No deity is involved. The word names the request itself, and in legal writing it means the relief being sought.
- 7USPRAY-ur/ˈpɹeɪɚ/UKPRAY-uh/ˈpɹeɪə/One who prays.
A devout prayer, she rose before sunrise each day to visit the shrine.
By evening the cathedral held only a few solitary prayers, each kneeling apart.
Similarworshipper, supplicant, devotee
Note
A separate word that happens to share the spelling: the verb pray plus the agent suffix -er. It has no link to the Old French line behind the practice of prayer. Because its plural looks the same as the plural for acts of praying, writers sometimes hyphenate it, as in Shel Silverstein's Where the Sidewalk Ends (1974). Otherwise, context must show whether infrequent prayers are people or petitions.
Practice
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Origins
From Middle English preiere, from Old French preiere, which came from Early Medieval Latin precāria, itself derived from Latin precem. It displaced the native Old English word ġebed.
Formed from the verb 'pray' plus the suffix '-er'.