Praising

How to spell praising

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce praising

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does praising mean?

1. verbExpressing warm approval or admiration of someone or something.

Praising in a sentence

• The manager kept praising her team for hitting every deadline.

• The review spent three paragraphs praising the restaurant's service.

Where does praising come from?

Language of origin: French

This is the present participle of the verb 'praise', which English took from Old French in the 1200s. The Old French verb was 'preisier', meaning to value, to set a price on, or to esteem, and it came in turn from Late Latin 'pretiare', built on the Latin noun 'pretium', meaning 'price' or 'worth'. So the original idea was strictly commercial: to praise something was literally to put a value on it, and only later did the sense soften into expressing warm approval or admiration. The very same 'pretium' root sits inside the related word 'price' and inside 'appraise', which still keeps the older 'assess the value' meaning. The spelling keeps the 's' of 'praise' rather than a 'z', even though it sounds like a 'z', which is the small trap that catches writers.

How the word is built

• prais- (from praise, to value highly)
• -ing (present participle / gerund suffix)