Ever notice that some words with diverse meanings sound alike? There are called homophones and are the source of countless confusions and misspeakery. The curious may ask if two homophones have a common origin, if perhaps a single word split in the distance past to give us the two words we have now.

Something of an example of a single word would be content. When we say CON-tent, emphasizing the front of half of the word, we mean the reading material, images, videos, or objects that fill up a website, magazine, or other media container. What’s in a thing is its content. When we say con-TENT, we mean to be at peace with a situation. “Having the desires limited to that which one has; not disposed to repine or grumble.” That’s the definition from Webster’s New International (2nd ed., many years old), adding this Spencer quotation: “Content with any food that God doth send.”

This word is not actually a homophone. It’s the same word with two meanings, both from one Latin word continere, meaning “to hold together, enclose” or to contain. The content of this blog is the substance contained therein, and to be content with something is to contain one’s desires within the bounds of that thing. Your umbrella may be bent and a bit shabby, but you’re content with it because you don’t want a new one yet.

My old Webster’s makes a good point contrasting content and satisfy. You may be settled or undisturbed by what you have, even though all of your desires have not been met or satisfied. “When I was at home, I was in a better place; but travelers must be content,” Shakespeare wrote in As You Like It. The speaker could easily want more or different, but today he’ll remain as he is–not satisfied but content.

But I was talking about homophones, such as pray and prey.

Pray came into English in the 13th century as preien, shown in this old Anglican prayer, “Almyghti god, euerlastynge, we preien thee grant us to slaken the flawme of oure vicis, that grauntidist to seynt laurence thi martir to ouercome the brynnyng of his turmentis. Bi crist.” The word came through French from the Latin precari, meaning “ask earnestly, beg, entreat.” You can hear a close relationship to the word precarious, which we often use to mean “uncertain” or “doubtful.” It actually means “dependent on someone else,” which is rather close to what the prayerful saint intends.

Prey in Middle English was preie, essentially the same spelling as the word intended as “pray.” Searching old prayer books, I see this spelling used repeatedly, such as this line from a tract by John Wyclif, “Christene men preie wiþout cessynge.” So, speaking as a layman, a novice, and a non-scholar (despite what they constantly told me in high school), perhaps both pray and prey were spelled the same in 13th century English.

But prey, a hunted animal, does not have the same root as pray. It comes from another French word (also preie) from the Latin praeda. These two words were used to mean “plunder and the spoils of conquest” as well as the rabbit in the falcon’s eye. And the verb form, to prey upon, is derived from the same Latin root.

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