practise

present singular third person practises · participle present practising · participle past practised · past practised · alternative practice

1. transitiveTo repeat (an activity) as a way of improving one's skill in that activity.

   You should practise playing piano every day.

   1 more example

   The legislation also seeks to outlaw “balconing”, the practice of jumping into a swimming pool from a hotel balcony that kills several people each year. In future, hotels will have to evict anyone practising balconing or encouraging others to do so.

   2020 January 17, Stephen Burgen, “Balearic islands pass bill targeting boozy Brits abroad”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 20 Mar 2020

2. intransitiveTo repeat an activity in this way.

   If you want to speak French well, you need to practise.

3. transitiveTo perform or observe in an habitual fashion.

   They gather to practise religion every Saturday.

   2 more examples

   Hydromancy was extensively practised by the Egyptian priests and sorcerers[.]

   1936, Rollo Ahmed, The Black Art, London: Long, page 39

   He draws eclectically on studies of baboons, descriptive anthropological accounts of hunter-gatherer societies and, in a few cases, the fossil record. With this biological framework in place, Corning endeavors to show that the capitalist system as currently practiced in the United States and elsewhere is manifestly unfair.

   2012 March-April, John T. Jost, “Social Justice: Is It in Our Nature (and Our Future)?”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 2, archived from the original on 13 Feb 2012, page 162

4. transitiveTo pursue (a career, especially law, fine art or medicine).

   She practised law for forty years before retiring.

5. intransitiveobsoleteTo conspire.
6. To put into practice; to carry out; to act upon; to commit; to execute; to do.

   As this advice ye practise or neglect.

   1715–1720, Homer, “Book VII”, in Alexander Pope, transl., The Iliad of Homer, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: […] W[illiam] Bowyer, for Bernard Lintott […], →OCLC

   1 more example

   Aught but Talbot's shadow whereon to practise your severity.

   1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Sixt”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iii]

7. To make use of; to employ.

   In malice to this good knight's wife, I practised Ubaldo and Ricardo to corrupt her.

   1629, Philip Massinger, Nathan Field, The Picture

8. To teach or accustom by practice; to train.

   In church they are taught to love God; after church they are practised to love their neighbour.

   1828, Walter Savage Landor, “Lord Brooke and Sir Philip Sidney”, in Imaginary Conversations of Literary Men and Statesmen, volume III, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC

plural practises

1. obsoleteuncountableusuallyObsolete spelling of practice.

   By heauen (fond vvretch) yͧ knovvſt not vvhat thou ſpeak'ſt, / Or elſe thou art ſuborn'd againſt his honor / In hatefull practiſe: […]

   c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Measure for Measure”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene i], page 80, column 2

   5 more examples

   And againe You ſaw that I ſpake to you from Heauen, therefore yee ſhall make no Gods of Golde nor ſiluer: as if he ſhould haue ſaide, my practiſe in ſpeakeing to you by voyce and not by Image ſhoulde teach you that by my word and not by image, I am be remembred.

   1596, Geruase Babington, A Very Fruitfull Exposition of the Commaundements by Way of Questions and Answeres for Greater Plainnesse, R. Robinson, for Thomas Charde, page 45

   [T]he practiſe of the Normans, who as a monument of the Conqueſt, would have yoaked the Engliſh vnder their tongue, as they did vnder their command, by compelling them to teach their children in ſchooles nothing but French, […]

   1605, M. N. [pseudonym; William Camden], “The Languages”, in Remaines of a Greater Worke, Concerning Britaine, […], London: […] G[eorge] E[ld] for Simon Waterson, →OCLC, page 22

   [C]ome forth, / And taſt the ayre of Palaces, eate, drinke / The toyles of Empricks, and their boaſted practiſe: / Tincture of Pearle, an Corall, Gold, and Amber; […]

   1610 (first performance), Ben[jamin] Jonson, The Alchemist, London: […] Thomas Snodham, for Walter Burre, and are to be sold by Iohn Stepneth, […], published 1612, →OCLC, Act IV, scene i

   [T]heſe Muſhrome Lords (Spirituall onely in Title, but wholly Temporall in reality), firſt ſprouted up by inſenſible degrees in the Church of Christ; ſo it is moſt infallibly convinced of notorious falſehood, by the multitude of thoſe moſt execrable Treaſons, Treacheries, Conſpiracies, Rebellions, Contumacies, Inſurrections, Seditions, and Anti-Monarchiall practiſes of Lordly Prelates, againſt their Soveraignes, in all ages ſince they grew rich and potent, in all Kingdomes and Churches where they have been admitted; […]

   1641, William Prynne, “The Prologve”, in The Antipathie of the English Lordly Prelacie, both to Regall Monarchy, and Civil Unity: or, An Historicall Collection of the Severall Execrable Treasons, Conspiracies, Rebellions, Seditions, State-schismes, Contumacies, Antimonarchicall Practices, & Oppressions of our English, British, French, Scottish, and Irish Lardly Prelates, against our Kingdomes, Lawes, Liberties; and of the Severall Warres, and Civil Dissentions Occasioned by Them, in or against our Realm, in Former and Latter Ages. … The First Part, volume I, London: Printed by authority for Michael Sparke, senior, →OCLC, page 1

   All wᶜʰ I have thus largely ſet down to ſhew the perfect conſonancie of our perſecuted Church to the doctrine of Scripture and Antiquity in this point, whereon ſo much depends for the ſtating & determining other differences, which have alſo a ſpecial influence on practiſe.

   1654, H[enry] Hammond, “Of Christ’s Dying for None but the Elect”, in Of Fundamentals in a Notion Referring to Practise, London: […] J[ames] Flesher for Richard Royston, […], →OCLC, §. 7, page 135

2. misspellinguncountableusuallyMisspelling of practice.