Word.ws English Dictionary

spray and pray

spray and pray verb: to dispense anything (such as bullets or advertising) in an uncoordinated manner, hoping to reach the desired target through luck.

Verb

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

  1. (informal) To dispense anything (such as bullets or advertising) in an uncoordinated manner, hoping to reach the desired target through luck.

Forms of spray and pray

third-person singular presentsprays and prays
present participlespraying and praying
past participlesprayed and prayed
pastsprayed and prayed

Questions about spray and pray

What does spray and pray mean?
Spray and pray means to dispense anything (such as bullets or advertising) in an uncoordinated manner, hoping to reach the desired target through luck.
What part of speech is spray and pray?
Spray and pray is a verb.
What is the past tense of spray and pray?
The past tense of spray and pray is sprayed and prayed.

Words near spray and pray in the dictionary

  1. sprawlings
  2. sprawlmart
  3. sprawls
  4. sprawly
  5. spray
  6. spray and pray
  7. spray bar
  8. spray bars
  9. spray bomb
  10. spray bottle
  11. spray bottles

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: spray and pray (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-spray and pray.wav.

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