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Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English oracioun, also oracion,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Middle French oracion (“prayer, discourse”)^[5] and directly borrowed from Latin ōrātiō (“speech, language, discourse”).^[5][6][4][2] The OED treats it as partly French and partly Latin,^[5] while the American Heritage Dictionary, Barnhart and the MED name only the Latin.^[6][4][2] The sense "prayer" belongs to post-classical Latin.^[5][6] The usual Old French form was oraison,^[3] and orison is a doublet of this word.^[4][7] The Latin noun is formed on ōrātus, the past participle of ōrō (“to speak, plead, pray”).^[5][7][8] The OED traces the verb to the same Indo-European base as Ancient Greek ἀρά (ará, “prayer, curse”), and perhaps Hittite ariya- (“to consult an oracle”).^[5] Barnhart sets up Proto-Indo-European *ōr-,^[4] and Klein calls this base imitative.^[7] Skeat and Dictionary.com derive the verb from ōs (“mouth”),^[9][10] a link that Klein rejects.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

A prayer to God: Oracion sall make thi chapelle, in the Abbey of the Holy Ghost, in a manuscript of about 1440.^[2][5] Barnhart dates the word to probably before 1375,^[4] and Etymonline to the late 14th century.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The sense "prayer" came first, and the sense "formal speech" followed about a century later: the OED's first record is about 1504, in W. Atkinson's translation of Thomas à Kempis,^[5] and Barnhart dates the same text to 1502.^[4] The same order appears elsewhere in Romance: Spanish oración meant "prayer" in 1207 and "discourse" in 1490, and Italian orazione meant "prayer" in the 12th century and "discourse" before 1527.^[5] French had the speech sense in the late 1400s.^[4] The "prayer" sense is now rare, and later used chiefly in the Roman Catholic Church;^[5] Merriam-Webster labels it archaic and quotes Washington Irving, the bells tolled the hour of oration.^[8] Johnson (1755) gives only the rhetorical sense, a speech made by the laws of rhetoric, a harangue or declamation.^[11] The wider sense of speech or language in general ran from 1555 to 1876.^[5] A verb oration was also used, first recorded in 1764 by the OED and in the mid 17th century by the Shorter Oxford.^[5][12] From the noun came orate, "to make a formal speech", a back-formation of about 1860 in American English, used humorously or with contempt.^[3] From 1828 the noun is recorded in northern English and Irish dialect for a noisy disturbance or fuss,^[5] and the English Dialect Dictionary finds it in Yorkshire, Lancashire, Northamptonshire, Worcestershire, Suffolk, Kent, Sussex and Hampshire; in West Yorkshire it could also mean a large number or long row, as in an oration of cottages.^[13]

Timeline

• c. 1440 – a prayer to God.^[5][2]
• c. 1504 – a formal discourse in elevated language, especially on a ceremonial occasion.^[5]
• 1555 – speech, language (obsolete by 1876).^[5]
• 1764 – verb, to make an oration (obsolete by 1876).^[5]
• 1828 – in northern English and Irish dialect, a noisy disturbance or fuss.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A formal public speech in dignified language, especially on a ceremonial occasion such as a funeral: She gave the oration at her teacher's graveside.^[8][5][14]
2. Any long, rhetorical or pompous speech.^[14]
3. (dialect) A noisy disturbance; an uproar or fuss, in England and northern Ireland.^[5][8][13]
4. (archaic) A prayer or petition to God.^{[8][5][12][2]}
5. (obsolete, 1555–1876) Speech, language.^[5][12]

Verb

1. To deliver an oration; the OED marks it obsolete, with a last record in 1876.^[8][12][5]

Related words

• orate
• orator
• oratory
• oratrix
• orison
• peroration
• oratorio
• oracle
• adore
• inexorable

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ a b c d Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
11. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
14. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins