Preacher

How to spell preacher

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce preacher

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does preacher mean?

1. nounA person who delivers sermons or proclaims religious teaching, especially in a church service.

Preacher in a sentence

• The travelling preacher drew a large crowd to the village hall.

• Every Sunday the preacher chose a passage and explained it carefully.

Where does preacher come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word traces back to the Latin verb praedicare, meaning 'to proclaim' or 'to declare publicly', formed from prae- (meaning 'before' or 'in front of') and dicare (meaning 'to proclaim' or 'to make known'). In the Latin of the early Christian church this took on the specific religious sense of proclaiming the gospel. The verb passed into Old French as prechier and was borrowed into English around the twelfth century as 'preach'. Adding the native agent suffix -er, meaning 'one who does the action', produced 'preacher', the person who delivers a sermon. The same praedicare root also gives us 'predicate' and 'predicament', though those words kept a spelling much closer to the Latin, while 'preach' was worn down in French; that is why the link is easy to miss and why the tricky 'ea' vowel often catches writers out.

How the word is built

• preach (from Latin praedicare, to proclaim)
• -er (agent suffix: one who does)