Prophecy

How to spell prophecy

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce prophecy

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does prophecy mean?

1. nounA prediction of what will happen in the future, often presented as inspired or divinely revealed.

Prophecy in a sentence

• The ancient prophecy warned of a great flood.

• Critics dismissed his gloomy economic prophecy as guesswork.

Where does prophecy come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word traces back to the Greek prophēteia, meaning 'the gift of interpreting the will of the gods', which was built on prophētēs, 'one who speaks for another' or 'a spokesman'. That noun joined pro, meaning 'before' or 'on behalf of', with the verb phēmi, 'to speak', so a prophet was literally someone who spoke out beforehand. The term passed into Latin as prophetia and then into Old French as profecie before reaching English in the 1200s, largely through religious and scriptural writing. A crucial spelling point: English kept two related forms, the noun prophecy (ending in -cy, the thing foretold) and the verb prophesy (ending in -sy, the act of foretelling), and the two are constantly muddled. The same Greek phēmi root also gives us 'blasphemy', another word about the power and danger of what is spoken aloud.

How the word is built

• pro- (before, in advance)
• phe- (from Greek phēmi: to speak)
• -cy (noun suffix)