Oreison

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A devout petition or prayer offered up to God or a sacred power in worship
2. An earnest supplication, a spoken appeal made to a deity in religious devotion
3. A solemn request addressed to heaven, a prayer said in humble worship and entreaty

Etymology: Oreison is a word that English took from Old French "oreison," meaning prayer, which came from Latin "oratio," the same root that gives us "orator" and "oration." The Latin word originally meant speech or the act of speaking, and in the church it came to mean a formal address to God. English borrowed the Old French form, and the word has stayed mostly within religious and literary contexts, where it sounds deliberately archaic. The spelling carries the Old French history. The English word kept the Old French pronunciation and form, so a reader meeting "oreison" in a medieval text would recognise it as a near relative of "orison," a variant spelling that appears in the same sources. Both forms descend from the same Latin base, so they are doublets of one another, two English words drawn from one source at different times and by different routes.

Synonyms: orison, prayer, supplication, invocation, petition