Word.ws English Dictionary

thoughts and prayers

thoughts and prayers phrase: used by officials and celebrities as a condolence after a tragic event.

Phrase

thoughts and prayers

  1. (US) Used by officials and celebrities as a condolence after a tragic event.
    • One, “Thoughts and Prayers,” was for the drummer Jo Jones; it included a sermonette for the high-hat cymbal. Mr. Hamilton dedicated another, “Just Play the Melody,” to Mr. Roach.2007 August 28, Ben Ratliff, “Headliner Can’t Make It? Here’s a First-Class Fill-In”, in New York Times
    • Another meme shows an empty van. “Excellent news,” it reads. “The first truckload of your thoughts and prayers has just arrived.”2018 February 20, AJ Willimgham, “How ‘thoughts and prayers’ went from common condolence to cynical meme”, in CNN

Origin of thoughts and prayers

Shortened from phrases such as the victims will be in our thoughts and prayers.

Questions about thoughts and prayers

What does thoughts and prayers mean?
Thoughts and prayers means used by officials and celebrities as a condolence after a tragic event.
What part of speech is thoughts and prayers?
Thoughts and prayers is a phrase.

Words near thoughts and prayers in the dictionary

  1. thoughtography
  2. thoughtpiece
  3. thoughtpieces
  4. thoughtproof
  5. thoughts
  6. thoughts and prayers
  7. thoughtscape
  8. thoughtscapes
  9. thoughtseed
  10. thoughtseeds
  11. thoughtsick

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: thoughts and prayers (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: “thoughts and prayers.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/thoughts_and_prayers. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.