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practice (n.)[practice 词源字典]: early 15c., practise, "practical application," originally especially of medicine but also alchemy, education, etc.; from Old French pratiser, from Medieval Latin practicare (see practice (v.)). From early 15c. often assimilated in spelling to nouns in -ice. Also as practic, which survived in parallel into 19c.[practice etymology, practice origin, 英语词源]
practiced (adj.): "expert," 1560s, past participle adjective from practice (v.).
practicing (adj.): 1620s in reference to professions; from 1906 in reference to religions; present participle adjective from practice (v.).
practicum (n.): 1904, from Late Latin practicum, neuter of practicus (see practical). Compare German praktikum.
practise: chiefly British English spelling of practice.
practitioner (n.): 1540s, a hybrid formed from practitian "practitioner" (c. 1500, from French practicien, from Late Latin practicus "fit for action," see practice (v.)) on model of parishioner. Johnson has as a secondary sense "One who uses any sly or dangerous arts."
Prado (n.): public park and promenade in Madrid, 1640s, Spanish, from Latin pratum "meadow" (see prairie). Compare Prater, large park in Vienna, German, from Italian prato "meadow." French preau "little meadow," formerly praël, Italian pratello are from Vulgar Latin *pratellum, diminutive of pratum.
prae-: word-forming element meaning "before," from Latin prae (adv.) "before," from PIE *prai-, *prei-, from root *per- (1) "forward, through" (see per; also see pre-). Reduced to pre- in Medieval Latin. According to OED the full form prae- in Modern English appears "usually only in words that are still regarded as Latin, ... or that are terms of classical antiquity ...."
praecipe (n.): c. 1500 (in Magna Carta in Anglo-Latin), from Latin praecipe, imperative of praecipere "to admonish, enjoin," from the opening words of such a writ, praecipe quod reddat "enjoin (him) that he render."
praenomen (n.): from Latin praenomen, literally "before the name," from prae- (see pre-) + nomen (see name (n.)).
Praesepe (n.): loose ("open") star cluster (M44) in Cancer, from Latin praesaepe the Roman name for the grouping, literally "enclosure, stall, manger, hive," from prae- (see pre-) + saepire "to fence" (see septum).

It is similar to the Hyades but more distant, about 600 light-years away, consists of about 1,000 stars, mostly older, the brightest of them around magnitude 6.5, thus not discernable to the naked eye even on the clearest nights, but their collective light makes a visible fuzz of glow that the ancients likened to a cloud (the original nebula); Galileo was the first to resolve it into stars (1609). The modern name for it in U.S. and Britain, Beehive, seems no older than 1840. Greek names included Nephelion "Little Cloud" and Akhlys "Little Mist." "In astrology, like all clusters, it threatened mischief and blindness" [Allen].

"Manger" to the Romans perhaps by influence of two nearby stars, Gamma and Delta Cancri, dim and unspectacular but both for some reason figuring largely in ancient astrology and weather forecasting, and known as "the Asses" (Latin Aselli), supposedly those of Silenus.
praeter-: see preter-.
praetor (n.): elected magistrate in ancient Rome (subordinate to consuls), early 15c., from Latin praetor "one who goes before;" originally "a consul as leader of an army," from prae "before" (see pre-) + root of ire "to go" (see ion).
Praetorian (adj.): early 15c., from Latin praetorianus "belonging to a praetor," from praetor (see praetor). Praetorian Guard is from cohors praetoria, the bodyguard troop of a Roman commander or emperor. Hence modern figurative use for "defenders of an existing order."
pragmatic (adj.): 1610s, "meddlesome, impertinently busy," short for earlier pragmatical, or else from Middle French pragmatique (15c.), from Latin pragmaticus "skilled in business or law," from Greek pragmatikos "fit for business, active, business-like; systematic," from pragma (genitive pragmatos) "a deed, act; that which has been done; a thing, matter, affair," especially an important one; also a euphemism for something bad or disgraceful; in plural, "circumstances, affairs" (public or private), often in a bad sense, "trouble," literally "a thing done," from stem of prassein/prattein "to do, act, perform" (see practical). Meaning "matter-of-fact" is from 1853. In some later senses from German pragmatisch.
pragmatical (adj.): 1590s, "concerned with practical results," from Latin pragmaticus (see pragmatic) + -al (1). Related: Pragmatically.
pragmaticism (n.): 1865, "officiousness," from pragmatic + -ism. From 1905 as a term in philosophy by American philosopher C.S. Peirce (1839-1914).
pragmatism (n.): "matter-of-fact treatment," 1825, from Greek pragmat-, stem of pragma "that which has been done" (see pragmatic) + -ism. As a philosophical doctrine, 1898, said to be from 1870s; probably from German Pragmatismus. As a name for a political theory, from 1951. Related: Pragmatist (1630s as "busybody;" 1892 as "adherent of a pragmatic philosophy").
Prague: capital of the Czech Republic, Czech Praha, perhaps from an ancient Slavic word related to Czech pražiti, a term for woodland cleared by burning. Popular etymology is from Czech prah "threshold." Related: Praguean; Praguian.
prairie (n.): tract of level or undulating grassland in North America, by 1773, from French prairie "meadow, grassland," from Old French praerie "meadow, pastureland" (12c.), from Vulgar Latin *prataria, from Latin pratum "meadow," originally "a hollow." The word existed in Middle English as prayere, but was lost and reborrowed to describe the American plains. Prairie dog is attested from 1774; prairie schooner "immigrant's wagon" is from 1841. Illinois has been the Prairie State since at least 1861. In Latin, Neptunia prata was poetic for "the sea."