Read along with the three podcasts, or open the full dictionary entry for Pray for the definition, Arabic meaning, synonyms and example sentences.
Narrator: Today's word is "Pray" — verb, pronounced /preɪ/, with the stress on "pray".
Narrator: To pray means to speak to God or a god, to give thanks or to ask for help.
Narrator: In plain English, praying is talking to God.
Narrator: It comes from the Old French preier, from the Latin precari, to ask earnestly.
Narrator: A common collocation is "pray for someone", which describes asking for help on another person's behalf.
Narrator: It differs from "prey", which sounds the same but means an animal hunted by another.
Narrator: In a second, everyday sense, we pray for good weather, meaning we hope very strongly.
Narrator: Religion, literature, history and everyday conversation all rely on the word.
Narrator: So remember: to pray is to speak to God, or to hope with all your heart.
Speaker A: Can you say you are praying for sunshine if you are not religious?
Speaker B: Absolutely! PRAY comes from the Latin precari, to ask earnestly, so it has always meant a heartfelt request.
Speaker A: So it can simply mean hoping hard?
Speaker B: Yes, especially in casual chat.
Speaker A: Example sentences?
Speaker B: "She prays every morning", a religious habit. "We are praying for a quick recovery", a heartfelt wish. "I'm praying the train isn't late", an everyday hope.
Speaker A: Common mistakes?
Speaker B: Do not confuse pray with prey; pray means to ask God, prey is a hunted animal.
Speaker A: Close relatives?
Speaker B: Worship is its devoted cousin, beseech is its old-fashioned twin, and hope is the everyday alternative, but pray keeps its heartfelt charm!
Speaker B: Let's use "pray" in AI prompts — useful for faith community apps and spell-checking tools.
Speaker A: How would a faith app use it?
Speaker B: Respect and inclusivity matter.
Prompt: Design a prayer request feature for a church app where members can submit, pray for and mark requests as answered, with privacy settings.
Speaker A: And spell-checking?
Speaker B: Homophones are a classic problem.
Prompt: Write a JavaScript function that flags possible confusions between pray and prey based on the surrounding words.
Speaker A: Could it help with scheduling?
Speaker B: Yes, for daily prayer times.
Prompt: Build a React widget that shows the five daily prayer times for the user's city and sends a reminder ten minutes before each.
Speaker A: One more?
Speaker B: Writing support.
Prompt: Suggest five respectful ways to say I will pray for you in a condolence message for people of different faiths.
Pray — meaning in Arabic & definition More P courses GL Dictionary