reverence
noun
a feeling or attitude of deep respect tinged with awe; veneration.
Showing results for reverence.
reverence
American
[rev-er-uhns, rev-ruhns]
/ ˈrɛv ər əns, ˈrɛv rəns /
noun
-
reverences
plural
-
a feeling or attitude of deep respect tinged with awe; veneration.
- Antonyms:
- contempt
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the outward manifestation of this feeling.
to pay reverence.
-
a gesture indicative of deep respect; an obeisance, bow, or curtsy.
-
the state of being revered, or treated with respect tinged with awe.
-
(initial capital letter) a title used in addressing or mentioning a member of the clergy (usually preceded by your orhis ).
verb (used with object)
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reverences,
present (3rd person singular)
-
reverenced,
past participle, past
-
reverencing
present participle
reverence
1
British
/ ˈrɛvərəns /
noun
-
a feeling or attitude of profound respect, usually reserved for the sacred or divine; devoted veneration
-
an outward manifestation of this feeling, esp a bow or act of obeisance
-
the state of being revered or commanding profound respect
-
archaic a form of apology for using an obscene or taboo expression
verb
Reverence
2
British
/ ˈrɛvərəns /
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
reverencesimple
-
reverencessimple
-
have reverencedperfect
-
has reverencedperfect
-
am reverencingprogressive
-
are reverencingprogressive
-
is reverencingprogressive
-
have been reverencingperfect progressive
-
has been reverencingperfect progressive
Past
-
reverencedsimple
-
had reverencedperfect
-
was reverencingprogressive
-
were reverencingprogressive
-
had been reverencingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of reverence
First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English, from Latin reverentia “respect, fear, awe”; equivalent to revere 1 + -ence
Explanation
Reverence is a feeling of deep respect or awe — like what you have for a president, a hero, or a favorite football player. Reverence can be a feeling of awe, and it can also describe how you treat someone, particularly when used with the word with. To treat someone "with reverence" is to show them intense respect. Your friends may respect you for your loyalty, though they probably do not bow to you with reverence every day.
Vocabulary lists containing reverence
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Now, as the trial of Tyler Robinson, Kirk’s alleged killer, begins, something has replaced that reverence.
From Slate ● Jul. 27, 2026
For a platform like Letterboxd, which has built its brand on reverence for film and all those who love it, selling to a company like Netflix would be a cold act of back-stabbing betrayal.
From Salon ● Jul. 15, 2026
By threading Celan’s poems through the lived record, Ms. Arno restores a proud, wounded, flirtatious, multilingual man often romanticized by reverence.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 5, 2026
The West Hollywood clam shack conjures Rhode Island on the West Coast, be it with clams of all kinds, lobster cooked just right or oysters treated with reverence.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 23, 2026
She traced a clockwise circle in the soil as a sign of respect and reverence, a technique she'd seen Gran do.
From "The Marvellers" by Dhonielle Clayton
To comply with independence rules, Eide Bailly said it would set up an alternative practice structure whereby its nonaudit business will receive the Reverence investment and the audit business will remain a licensed CPA firm.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 23, 2026
Reverence is a longer black diamond halfway along Rattlesnake Mountain with a few optional double black diamond features.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 6, 2024
“This was a junkyard with cars all over the place,” she says, surveying the 3,150-square-foot plot of land that surrounds the office of the nonprofit Reverence Project.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 22, 2023
Reverence radiates from Alberta Whittle’s textile hanging, floating on high, made from clothes — European, African — owned by her cosmopolitan Barbadian grandfather.
From New York Times ● Jun. 23, 2022
"A fine old horse, your Reverence; a fine old horse, fit to carry your worship's weight; but he never will go again upon all fours."
From Geoffery Gambado A Simple Remedy for Hypochondriacism and Melancholy Splenetic Humours by William Henry Bunbury
It seemed to me that there pervaded on that island one of the deepest respects and reverences for the dead.
From Time Magazine Archive
Manhattan's Metropolitan Museum has revered its precedents as it reverences its Rembrandts.
From Time Magazine Archive
“My father praised Robert without respite! So my behavior was disgracious. But such reverences, such empathies that existed between them, they are very combustible. Friendship is a calmer thing. Robert left Zedelgem in winter.”
From "Black Swan Green" by David Mitchell
"It is Your Highness' pleasure to command my presence," said the young man, as soon as he made his reverences to the queen.
From Mercedes of Castile The Voyage to Cathay by J. Fenimore Cooper
These gloomy reveries grew deeper and darker as he wandered from place to place, and marked the stealthy glances and timid reverences of the peasants as they passed him.
From Roland Cashel Volume II (of II) by Charles James Lever
But Pi is precociously enlightened, his innocence not a problem to be rectified but a quality to be reverenced.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 9, 2025
Most white Americans were of British descent, they drew their political principles from English history, and they reverenced the king as protector of his people and their liberties.
From Textbooks ● Jan. 18, 2018
He went to Paris, where he lived with Theo, painted furiously and tried to become like the Impressionists, whom he reverenced.
From Time Magazine Archive
Low-churchmen do not pray to the Virgin; she is reverenced but, by those who enjoy detecting a fine distinction, as the mother of Christ rather than as the mother of God.
From Time Magazine Archive
I liked to read what they liked to read: what they enjoyed, delighted me; what they approved, I reverenced.
From "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë
In a land reverencing charismatic leadership and far-reaching intellect, he looks like a messenger boy and disparages his own brain.
From Time Magazine Archive
The cohesion of the body lies in each one's realizing his own gift, and also reverencing that of others.
From St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, Vol. II A Practical Exposition by Charles Gore
The Dutch in Europe were a highly cultivated people, devoted to learning and reverencing the printed book.
From Dutch and English on the Hudson A Chronicle of Colonial New York by Maud Wilder Goodwin
For true religion comes not by violence, but chiefly, I think, from being brought up with good men, reverencing their ways and words.
From The Men of the Moss-Hags Being a history of adventure taken from the papers of William Gordon of Earlstoun in Galloway by S. R. (Samuel Rutherford) Crockett
There are certain dogmas relating to what is just and good in which we have been brought up from childhood--obeying and reverencing them.
From Christianity and Greek Philosophy or, the relation between spontaneous and reflective thought in Greece and the positive teaching of Christ and His Apostles by B. F. (Benjamin Franklin) Cocker
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.
