prayed

Verb

pray (third-person singular simple present prays, present participle praying, simple past and past participle prayed)

1. To direct words, thoughts, or one's attention to a deity or any higher being, for the sake of adoration, thanks, petition for help, etc.
   • Muslims pray in the direction of Mecca.
2. To humbly beg a person for aid or their time.
3. (obsolete) To ask earnestly for; to seek to obtain by supplication; to entreat for.
   • I know not how to pray your patience.1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “Much Adoe about Nothing”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
4. To wish or hope strongly for a particular outcome.
   • She is praying that the Red Sox will win tonight.
5. (obsolete) To implore, to entreat, to request.
   • They prayd him sit, and gave him for to feed
     Such homely what as serves the simple clowne,
     That doth despise the dainties of the towne[…]1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book VI, Canto IX”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 7

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