Predicants

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. One who delivers a formal religious discourse or sermon
2. an individual who engages in preaching or sharing religious beliefs with others
3. a person advocating or promoting specific moral or ethical principles through spoken or written expression

Etymology: "Predicants" is the plural of "predicant," a noun for someone who preaches or shares religious beliefs. The word comes from Latin "praedicans," the present participle of "praedicare," meaning "to proclaim" or "to make known publicly." Its root "dicare" carries the sense of declaring or pronouncing, the same core idea found in "dictate," "diction," and "predict," which all share the notion of speaking something forth. The Latin verb itself combined "prae-," meaning "before" or "forth," with "dicare." Proclaiming before others was the literal act, so the religious sense of preaching grew naturally out of an older public-announcement meaning. Because "predicant" follows the pattern of other participle-derived nouns, it looks like a plain English noun, yet the same Latin source also gave English "preach," which arrived through Old French "precher" and Latin "praedicare."

Synonyms: preachers, ministers