Practise

How to spell practise

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce practise

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does practise mean?

1. verbTo perform an activity repeatedly in order to improve a skill.
2. verbTo work actively in a profession such as medicine or law.

Practise in a sentence

• She likes to practise the piano for an hour every evening.

• After qualifying, she chose to practise medicine in a rural clinic.

• Athletes must practise regularly to keep their reactions sharp.

• He is now licensed to practise law in two provinces.

Where does practise come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word traces back to the Greek praktikos, meaning 'fit for action' or 'concerned with doing', which itself grew from prassein, 'to do or accomplish'. It passed into Medieval Latin as practicare, 'to carry out or perform', and then into Old French as practiser before reaching English in the late 1400s. In British and Canadian usage a neat convention developed: the verb is spelled 'practise' and the noun 'practice', a distinction modelled on the older pairing of 'advise' (verb) and 'advice' (noun). American English later abandoned the split and uses 'practice' for both, which is precisely why the -ise verb form feels like a trap to anyone who reads a lot of American text. Remembering the advise/advice parallel is the surest way to keep the verb 's' in place.

How the word is built

• practis- (from Greek praktikos: fit for doing, active)
• -e (verb form)

British and American spelling

Practise is the British spelling. American English spells it practice.