Etymology

preach

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Today it means: To give a sermon. Full definition →

Middle English prechen ← Old French prëechier ← Latin praedicō
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The story

  1. Latin · derived frompraedicō“to proclaim, announce”
  2. Old French · derived fromprëechier
  3. Middle English · inherited fromprechen
  4. English todaypreach

From Middle English prechen, from Old French prëechier, precchier (Modern French prêcher), from Latin praedicō (“to proclaim, announce”, literally “to fore-assign, pre-dedicate”). Doublet of predicate. The Latin word is also the source of Old English predician (“to preach”), Saterland Frisian preetje (“to preach”), West Frisian preekje (“to preach”), Dutch preken (“to preach”), German Low German preken (“to preach”), German predigen (“to preach”), Danish prædike (“to preach”), Swedish predika (“to preach”), Icelandic prédika (“to preach”), Norwegian Nynorsk preika (“to preach”).

Words from the same roots

Latinpraedicō all →

predict

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.