preach

verb

ˈprēch 

preached; preaching; preaches

intransitive verb

1

: to deliver a sermon

2

: to urge acceptance or abandonment of an idea or course of action

specifically : to exhort in an officious or tiresome manner

transitive verb

1

: to set forth in a sermon

preach the gospel

2

: to advocate earnestly

preached revolution

3

: to deliver (something, such as a sermon) publicly

4

: to bring, put, or affect by preaching

preached the … church out of debt

—Amer. Guide Series: Va.

preachingly

ˈprē-chiŋ-lē 

adverb

Synonyms

• sermonize

Examples of preach in a Sentence

Have you ever heard that minister preach?

The minister preached to the congregation about the need for tolerance.

His followers listened to him preach the gospel.

The priest preached a regular sermon that Sunday.

Their mother has always preached the value of a good education.

Practice what you preach—don't smoke if you tell your children not to smoke.

The mayor continues to preach about the need for patience.

I don't like being preached at about how I should live my life.

Recent Examples on the Web

Flexible Work Opportunities Many companies preach employee well-being and flexible work but fail to deliver due to resistance to change, including within HR departments. —Expert Panel®, Forbes, 21 Nov. 2024

That’s what Wall Street is preaching — at least for now. —Alicia Adamczyk, Fortune, 3 Nov. 2024

Since being hired as coach, Redick has preached a perspective that values process ahead of results, and his team creating and taking the right kind of threes has been a major priority in the preseason. —Dan Woike, Los Angeles Times, 16 Oct. 2024

Johnson and others believed that dictionaries could record, and not merely dictate, the expressions of a people, in a version of what Savigny, the Grimms’ old professor at Marburg, had preached about the law. —Jennifer Wilson, The New Yorker, 4 Nov. 2024

Word History

Etymology

Middle English prechen, from Anglo-French precher, from Late Latin praedicare, from Latin, to proclaim, make known, from prae- pre- + dicare to proclaim — more at diction

First Known Use

13th century, in the meaning defined at intransitive sense 1

Phrases Containing preach

• preach to the choir
• preach to the converted

Kids Definition

preach

verb

ˈprēch 

1

a

: to deliver a sermon : utter publicly

b

: to set forth in a sermon

preach the gospel

2

: to urge publicly : advocate

preach brotherhood