Praise
From Proto Indo European preti, with a sense of “recompense” or “payback”. Other descendants of preti include precious, price, prize, appraise, and depreciate. In Latin it became pretiare, and in late Latin preciare; in Old French it was preisier, and it was this form that entered English in the 1200’s, replacing the native Germanic words lof and hreth.
Praise starts with “p”, similar in meaning to the explosive start of “b”, but less explosive and more concerned with a particular place, a point, a location (the object of praise?). At that point a great deal of energy is focused (”r”) which is elastic and spreads out wide (long “a”), ending with a sort of directed flourish (”z”).
It’s interesting to compare this with some similar words:
- Prize, closely related to praise, has the same phonosemantics, except that the energy is oriented more specifically towards “mind and art”, and perhaps creative endeavors.
- Pray is identical to praise, as well, except there is no directed flourish at the end: there is only the point infused with energy, which then expands.
Thanks to Ali for suggesting this word of the day.
May 20th, 2007 at 5:05 pm
Wow, awesome.
Thanks so much for taking on this word. I find this whole idea of “phonosemantics” really fascinating.
May 22nd, 2007 at 5:15 am
Me too! Definitely check out the “Magical Letter Page” link in the sidebar; Margaret Magnus has done a huge amount of research and put it up there. There are some articles about archetypes of the letters that you might find particularly interesting, given your background in comparative religion.
June 2nd, 2007 at 11:04 pm
[...] phonosemantics of prose are identical to that of praise and prize — a focal point (”p”) is infused with energy (”r”); the energy is [...]