preacher

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“
For the earnestness of the preacher is a sermon appreciable by dullest intellects and most alien ears.

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Definitions (11)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (3)

  1. noun One who preaches, especially one who publicly proclaims the gospel for an occupation.
  2. noun Alaska A fallen tree or log submerged in a river and creating a hazard for boats.
  3. Regional Note
    River navigation in America has its own lexicon, including words for hazards encountered in riverboat travel. Large uprooted trees that had drifted down the river and become stuck in the riverbed were sometimes known by their peculiar and dangerous characteristics. John McPhee writes for the New Yorker: "One kind . . . known as a sawyer, sawed up and down with the vagaries of the current . . . In the Yukon River, such logs—eternally bowing—are known as preachers. In the Mississippi . . . they were all snags.”

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Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

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Examples (50)

  • Of course the preacher was a fool and would better mind his own business, but, singularly enough, my sympathies were with him and not with the harpies who jeered him Turning into my own house, I went into my room and, after removing my hat, I pinned a large white apron over my severely plain street dress and set about dusting my rooms, a task I usually did over after the house-boy. —  MADELEINE: An Autobiography
  • He listened to him at first without knowing him; but God disclosed Francis to him in the course of the sermon, by two shining swords pierced through the Saint cross-wise, one from the head to the feet, and the other from one hand to the other through the breast; from this he became aware that the preacher was the holy man of whom so much was spoken. —  The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi
  • One obstacle in the way of her success as a preacher was her manner of speaking. —  The Grimke Sisters
  • He was confronted with proof that his preacher was an anti-American hate-monger, and his response wasn't to accept blame for his association with such a noxious man, but rather to say that Wright's problem was actually the nation's problem and what we needed to do was have a national conversation about race. —  Federalist Paupers
  • On the other hand, it may be the kind of congregation where texting questions to the preacher is as natural as it feels for me to take notes on the bulletin or in my Moleskine. —  Akma
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Related

Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

clergyman ·  scholar ·  orator ·  teacher ·  minister ·  statesman ·  physician ·  pastor ·  writer ·  musician ·  critic ·  missionary

Used in the same contextWord Family

preacher:   preachers
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (1)

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. from Middle English precher, prechour, from Old French precheor, precheur, French prêcheur = Provencal predicaire, prezicaire = Spanish predicador = Portuguese pregador = Italian predicatore (cf. Anglo-Saxon predicere, Dutch prediker = Middle Low German prediker, predeger = Old High German predigāri, bredigāri, Middle High German bredigære, German prediger = Icelandic prēdikari, with different suffix), a preacher, from Latin prædicator, one who declares in public, a proclaimer, Late Latin and Middle Latin a preacher, from prædicare, declare, preach: see preach.
 

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/ˈpritʃər/
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