a profound reverence for great people or their memory.
extravagant or excessive admiration for a personal hero.
admiration for heroes or idealized persons
worship by the ancient Greeks and Romans of heroes
First recorded in 1765–75
First recorded in 1880–85
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Instead, “Him” wonders what kind of spiritual practice it is: hero worship or a sinister cult?
From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 19, 2025
The Emergency was also a stark warning against the perils of hero worship - something embodied in the towering political persona of Indira Gandhi.
From BBC • Jun. 24, 2025
“My intention throughout,” he writes, “has been to avoid hagiography and hero worship, telling Lewis’s full story with all its ups and downs intact.”
From Seattle Times • Feb. 26, 2024
It marketed itself as another run of the mill hero storyline with its final trailer full of the typical hero worship, Avengers and .
From Salon • Nov. 27, 2023
In Danville they had made him the object of hero worship.
From "Song of Solomon" by Toni Morrison
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
