Word.ws English Dictionary

praught

/pɹɔːt/

praught is the simple past and past participle of preach.

Meaning of preach

Verb

preach (third-person singular simple present preaches, present participle preaching, simple past and past participle preached or (nonstandard) praught)

  1. (intransitive) To give a sermon.
    • Our pastor can preach very well.
  2. (transitive) To proclaim by public discourse; to utter in a sermon or a formal religious harangue.
    • The Spirit of the Lord God is vpon me, therefore hathe the Lord anointed me: he hathe ſent me to preache good tidings vnto the poore,[…]1560, [William Whittingham et al., transl.], The Bible and Holy Scriptures Conteyned in the Olde and Newe Testament. […] (the Geneva Bible), Geneva: […] Rouland Hall, →OCLC, Isaiah LXI:1, folio 304...
  3. (transitive) To advise or recommend earnestly.
    • My Mʳ preaches patience to him,[…]c. 1594 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Comedie of Errors”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...
  4. (transitive) To teach or instruct by preaching; to inform by preaching.
    • The Spirits of the Dead, / Quitting their mortal mansion, enter not, / As falsely ye are preached, their final seat / Of bliss, or bale;[…]1801, Robert Southey, “The Ninth Book”, in Thalaba the Destroyer, volume II, London: […] [F]or T[homas] N[orton] Longman and O[wen] Rees, […], by Biggs and Cottle, […], →OCLC, page 149
  5. (intransitive) To give advice in an offensive or obtrusive manner.
    • Papa, don't preach, I'm in trouble, deep / Papa, don't preach, I've been losing sleep1986, Brian Elliot, Madonna, “Papa Don't Preach”, performed by Madonna

See all 7 meanings of preach

Synonyms of praught

Origin of praught

Derived from preach by analogy with teach : taught. Apparently a modern jocular construction but taken seriously by some. In print, generally appearing as a nonce in a much-quoted doggerel verse, attributed by some to Phoebe Cary in 1854, appearing in Punchinello 1.27 in 1870, there attributed to Amos Keeter. See quot. 1870.

Words that rhyme with praught

22 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about praught

What is praught the simple past and past participle of?
Praught is the simple past and past participle of preach.
How do you pronounce praught?
Praught is pronounced /pɹɔːt/.

Words near praught in the dictionary

  1. pratylenchid
  2. pratylenchids
  3. Pratyush
  4. pratītyasamutpāda
  5. prau
  6. praught
  7. praunce
  8. praunced
  9. prauncer
  10. prauncers
  11. praunces

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: praught (page history and authors); preach (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “praught.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/praught. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.