to speak to a god or higher power, usually asking for help or offering thanks.
From Old French 'preier,' derived from Latin 'precari' meaning 'to ask' or 'to request.' The religious meaning developed as the practice of asking deities for intervention became central to prayer.
Almost every human culture has independently invented prayer, which suggests something deep in us wants to express hope or gratitude to something bigger—and the word itself just means 'to ask,' which shows how universal that impulse is.
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