practise

• practice (US)

From Middle English practizen, a variant of practisen, from Middle French pratiser, practiser, from Medieval Latin practizo, from Late Latin practico (“to do, perform, execute, propose, practise, exercise, be conversant with, contrive, conspire, etc.”), from prāctica (“practical affairs", "business”), from Ancient Greek πρᾱκτική (prāktikḗ), from πρᾱκτικός (prāktikós, “practical”), from πρᾱ́σσειν (prā́ssein, “to do”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *per(h₂)- (“to go over, cross”).

• enPR: prăkʹtĭs, IPA^(key): /ˈpɹæktɪs/

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• Rhymes: -æktɪs

practise (third-person singular simple present practises, present participle practising, simple past and past participle practised)

1. (transitive) To repeat (an activity) as a way of improving one's skill in that activity.

   You should practise playing piano every day.

2. (intransitive) To repeat an activity in this way.

   If you want to speak French well, you need to practise.

3. (transitive) To perform or observe in a habitual fashion.

   They gather to practise religion every Saturday.

   • 1936, Rollo Ahmed, The Black Art, London: Long, page 39:

     Hydromancy was extensively practised by the Egyptian priests and sorcerers[.]

   • 2012 March-April, John T. Jost, “Social Justice: Is It in Our Nature (and Our Future)?”, in American Scientist‎, volume 100, number 2, archived from the original on 13 February 2012, page 162:

     He draws eclectically on studies of baboons, descriptive anthropological accounts of hunter-gatherer societies and, in a few cases, the fossil record. With this biological framework in place, Corning endeavors to show that the capitalist system as currently practiced in the United States and elsewhere is manifestly unfair.

4. (transitive) To pursue (a career, especially law, fine art or medicine).

   She practised law for forty years before retiring.

5. (intransitive, obsolete) To conspire.
6. To put into practice; to carry out; to act upon; to commit; to execute; to do.
   • 1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Sixt”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iii]:

     Aught but Talbot's shadow whereon to practise your severity.

   • 1715–1720, Homer; [Alexander] Pope, transl., “Book VII”, in The Iliad of Homer, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: […] W[illiam] Bowyer, for Bernard Lintott […], →OCLC:

     As this advice ye practise or neglect.

7. To make use of; to employ.
   • 1629, Philip Massinger and Nathan Field, The Picture

     In malice to this good knight's wife, I practised Ubaldo and Ricardo to corrupt her.

8. To teach or accustom by practice; to train.
   • 1828, Walter Savage Landor, “Lord Brooke and Sir Philip Sidney”, in Imaginary Conversations of Literary Men and Statesmen, volume III, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC:

     In church they are taught to love God; after church they are practised to love their neighbour.

• In sense "to repeat an activity as a way improving one's skill" this is a catenative verb that takes the gerund (-ing). See Appendix:English catenative verbs.

• British, Australian, Canadian, New Zealand and South African English spelling distinguishes between practice (a noun) and practise (a verb), analogously with advice and advise though without an analogous difference in pronunciation. In American English, the spelling practice is commonly used for both noun and verb.

• practised
• practise what one preaches
• practising

• practic
• practicable
• practical
• practice
• practitioner

• practise in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
• “practise”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

practise (plural practises)

1. Misspelling of practice.

• crispate, paretics, patrices, picrates, pie carts