praying
verb
Form of pray , present participle of pray.
Simple meaning
To direct words, thoughts, or one's attention to a deity or any higher being, for the sake of adoration, thanks, petition for help.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
prayingSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈpɹeɪɪŋ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
present participle of pray
To direct words, thoughts, or one's attention to a deity or any higher being, for the sake of adoration, thanks, petition for help, etc.
present participle of pray
To humbly beg a person for aid or their time.
present participle of pray
To wish or hope strongly for a particular outcome.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: To direct words, thoughts, or one's attention to a deity or any higher being, for the sake of adoration, thanks, petition for help, etc.
Used this way, praying is a reasonably familiar word with a clearly warm, approving pull. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Positive
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Positive and appreciative
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
Address a deity, a prophet, a saint or an object of worship.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
The act of communicating with a deity (especially as a petition or in adoration or contrition or thanksgiving).
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
The common mantis.
The common mantis.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
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What Does It Mean Here?
Words can change meaning depending on context.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.