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Pray vs Precation - What's the difference?

pray | precation |

As a verb pray

is to petition or solicit help from a supernatural or higher being.

As an adverb pray

is please; used to make a polite request.

As a noun precation is

(rare) a prayer or act of praying; an earnest request.

pray

English

Verb

(en verb)
  • To petition or solicit help from a supernatural or higher being.
    • Muslims pray in the direction of Mecca.
  • To humbly beg a person for aid or their time.
  • (religion) to communicate with God for any reason.
  • (obsolete) To ask earnestly for; to seek to obtain by supplication; to entreat for.
  • * Shakespeare
    • I know not how to pray your patience.

    Derived terms

    * prayer * pray in aid

    Adverb

    (-)
  • please; used to make a polite request.
    • pray silence for…
  • * 1816 , (Jane Austen), , Volume 1 Chapter 8
    • "Pray , Mr. Knightley," said Emma, who had been smiling to herself through a great part of this speech, "how do you know that Mr. Martin did not speak yesterday?"
  • * Charles Dickens, , 1841:
    • Pray''' don’t ask me why, '''pray''' don’t be sorry, '''pray don’t be vexed with me!
  • * Frederick Marryat, , 1845:
    • Well, Major, pray tell us your adventures, for you have frightened us dreadfully.
  • * 1892 , (Arthur Conan Doyle),
    • Thank you. I am sorry to have interrupted you. Pray continue your most interesting statement.
  • * 2013 , Martina Hyde, Is the pope Catholic?'' (in ''The Guardian , 20 September 2013)[http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/20/is-pope-catholic-atheists-gay-people-abortion]
    • He is a South American, so perhaps revolutionary spirit courses through Francis's veins. But what, pray , does the Catholic church want with doubt?

    precation

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (rare) A prayer or act of praying; an earnest request.
  • * 1881 , , History of the Church of England , Vol. 2, Routledge, p. 431:
    • The Litany . . . was ordered to be sung immediately before High Mass, by the priests "with others of the choir". . . . and this solemn form of precation , like so many other things, assumed the livery of uniformity.
  • * 1893 , Charles P. G. Scott, "English Words Which Hav Gaind or Lost an Initial Consonant by Attraction," Transactions of the American Philological Association , vol. 24, p. 123:
    • The full form of the precation was God give you a good even .
  • * 1996 , J. L. Styan, The English Stage , ISBN 9780521556361, pp. xiii-xiv:
    • The present inquiry therefore aims to pay more than lipservice to the notion of drama as performance, and to make more than a gesture towards the idea of theatre as a composite art, one that mixes music and mime, dance and song, painting and design, poetry and narrative, and much else. It is precation and response, and seeks out evidence of the manipulation of the audience and its powers of perception.

    Derived terms

    * precative * precatory

    References

    *Oxford English Dictionary , 2nd ed., 1989.

    Anagrams

    *