preach: [13] Preach goes back ultimately to Latin praedicāre ‘proclaim’ (source also of English predicament and predicate). Its Old French descendant was prechier, whence English preach (English had actually acquired the word before, directly from Latin in the Anglo-Saxon period, as predician ‘preach’, but this had died out before the Old French word arrived). The semantic shift in the Latin verb from ‘proclaiming’ to ‘preaching’ took place in the early Christian period. => predicament, predicate
preach (v.)
at first in late Old English predician, a loan word from Church Latin; reborrowed 12c. as preachen, from Old French preechier "to preach, give a sermon" (11c., Modern French précher), from Late Latin praedicare "to proclaim publicly, announce" (in Medieval Latin "to preach"), from Latin prae "before" (see pre-) + dicare "to proclaim, to say" (see diction). Related: Preached; preaching. To preach to the converted is recorded from 1867 (form preach to the choir attested from 1979).
实用例句
1. He denounced the decision to invite his fellow archbishop to preach.
他痛斥了邀请其他大主教同仁布道的决定。
来自柯林斯例句
2. "Don't preach at me," he shouted.
他大喊道：“不要对我说教。”
来自柯林斯例句
3. He realized that his calling was to preach the gospel.
