DictionaryAI

prize

PRYZ/pɹaɪz/

Pluralprizes

Verbprizes, prizing, prized

12 meanings of prize

Practice

  1. 1
    winner's rewardnouncountable
    Something given as a reward to the winner of a contest, competition or lottery, or to honor an achievement.

    The committee awarded the grand prize to an unknown poet.

    Each prize was designed to reward months of hard work.

    UsageYou win a prize for something; often first prize with no article. Don't confuse it with price, what something costs.

    Similarreward

  2. 2
    value highlyverbtransitive
    To value something highly; to hold it in great esteem.

    Collectors prize these coins for their rarity.

    She prized the quiet hours before dawn more than sleep itself.

    UsageOften prize something for a quality or above something else; very common as prized: a prized possession.

    Similarvalue, treasure, cherish, esteem, appreciate

    Oppositedisdain, despise, scorn

    Note

    Despite the spelling, this is a different word from the prize seized in war. Shakespeare's The Tempest sets it between love and honor. J. M. Coetzee's The Childhood of Jesus (2013) uses it of an old broken cup, so what one prizes may have no market value at all.

  3. 3
    valued goalnouncountable
    Something worth striving for; a valuable thing one holds or hopes to gain.

    For the young lawyer, a partnership at the firm was the real prize, worth every late night.

    To her, his trust was a prize she would never risk losing.

    Similartreasure, goal, gem

  4. 4
    enemy ship takennouncountable
    Property captured from an enemy under the rights of war, especially a ship taken at sea.

    The frigate towed its prize into the harbor under armed guard.

    Captured as a prize, the merchant ship was later sold at auction.

    Note

    War at sea narrows the general sense of capture to property taken under the rights of war, above all a ship. The vessel itself is the prize, and pirates used the word the same way: in Charles Johnson's A General History of the Pyrates (1724), Avery's crew "plundered their Prize" and then "let her go." A prize can be stripped, towed, sold or released, and it takes ship verbs and the pronoun she.

Practice

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Origins

Meanings 1, 3–4, 7, 9, 11

Latin prēndere ("to take, seize") became Old French prendre ("to take, to capture"), whose past participle prise came to name a taking, a capture, a thing seized, or booty. Middle English took it over as prise. Prison, comprise, and surprise come from the same source.

Meanings 2, 8, 10, 12

Latin pretium ("price, value"), which also gave English price, became Old French pris ("price"), and from that came the verb preisier ("to set a price or value on, esteem"). Middle English borrowed it as prysen. Praise, appraise, and apprize belong to the same family.