Proclaim

How to spell proclaim

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce proclaim

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does proclaim mean?

1. verbTo announce something officially or publicly, with conviction or authority.

Proclaim in a sentence

• The government will proclaim a national holiday next week.

• The council voted to proclaim the area a protected wildlife zone.

Where does proclaim come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin proclamare, which combined the prefix pro-, meaning 'forth' or 'publicly', with the verb clamare, meaning 'to cry out' or 'to shout'. The literal sense was therefore to cry something out in public so that everyone could hear it, which is still the heart of the modern meaning. English took the word in during the late 1300s, partly through Old French proclamer, and used it for the formal public announcement of news, laws, and royal decrees. The same clamare root echoes through a whole family of relatives that English uses today, including 'claim', 'exclaim', 'clamour', and 'declare's cousin'. Knowing that 'claim' is the core of the word helps with the spelling, since the trap is the unstressed 'pro-' opening rather than the familiar 'claim' that follows.

How the word is built

• pro- (forth, publicly)
• claim (from Latin clamare: to cry out)