prayer

What it means

1. uncountableA practice of communicating with one's God, or with some spiritual entity.

   Through prayer I ask for God's guidance.

   1 more example

   In many cultures, prayer involves singing.

2. countableAn act of praying.

   In that spirit, we’ll close with the wish we always offer at the end of our annual review, although this time it’s more of a prayer: Happy new year.

   2020 December, Dave Barry, Year in review

   1 more example

   Then everybody once more knelt, and soon the blessing was pronounced. The choir and the clergy trooped out slowly, […], down the nave to the western door. […] At a seemingly immense distance the surpliced group stopped to say the last prayer.

   1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter V, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC

3. countableuncountableThe specific words or methods used for praying.

   Christians recite the Lord's Prayer.

   1 more example

   For Baha'is, there's a difference between obligatory prayers and devotional prayers.

In a sentence

Through prayer I ask for God's guidance.

Where it comes from

1. Latinprecem
2. Early Medieval Latinprecāria
3. Old Frenchpreiere
4. Middle Englishpreiere
5. Englishprayer

From Middle English preiere, from Old French preiere, from Early Medieval Latin precāria, derived from Latin precem. Displaced native Old English ġebed (whence modern English bead).