precation

plural precations

1. countablerareuncountableA prayer or act of praying; an earnest request.

   The full form of the precation was God give you a good even.

   1893, Charles P. G. Scott, “English Words Which Hav Gaind or Lost an Initial Consonant by Attraction,”, in Transactions of the American Philological Association, volume 24, page 123

   2 more examples

   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.

   1881, Richard Watson Dixon, History of the Church of England, volume 2, Routledge, page 431

   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.

   1996, J. L. Styan, The English Stage, →ISBN, pages xiii–xiv