revere
verb (used with object)
to regard with respect tinged with awe; venerate.
revere
1 American
[ri-veer]
/ rɪˈvɪər /
verb (used with object)
-
reveres,
present (3rd person singular)
-
revered,
past participle, past
-
revering
present participle
revere
2
American
[ri-veer]
/ rɪˈvɪər /
noun
Revere
3
American
[ri-veer]
/ rɪˈvɪər /
noun
-
Paul, 1735–1818, American silversmith and patriot, famous for his night horseback ride, April 18, 1775, to warn Massachusetts colonists of the coming of British troops.
-
a city in E Massachusetts, on Massachusetts Bay, near Boston: seaside resort.
Revere
1
British
/ rɪˈvɪə /
noun
revere
2
British
/ rɪˈvɪə /
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
reveresimple
-
reveressimple
-
have reveredperfect
-
has reveredperfect
-
am reveringprogressive
-
are reveringprogressive
-
is reveringprogressive
-
have been reveringperfect progressive
-
has been reveringperfect progressive
Past
-
reveredsimple
-
had reveredperfect
-
was reveringprogressive
-
were reveringprogressive
-
had been reveringperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of revere
First recorded in 1655–65; from Latin reverērī, equivalent to re- re- + verērī “to stand in awe of, fear, feel reverence” (akin to ware 2 )
Explanation
Revere means to respect someone so deeply that you almost worship them. Many Americans revere civil rights activists like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks, who worked to make the country a more just place. Revere is related to the words reverence ("to hold something in worshipful awe") and its opposite — irreverent. Reverence for the irreverent is actually possible. Howard Stern humor is often vulgar and absurdly irreverent yet his legions of fans and even some media analysts revere him and his ability to maintain a loyal audience. Revere is the perfect word when respect is not strong enough but worship seems a little too religious-sounding. Rock stars, for example, are revered by throngs of devoted fans.
Vocabulary lists containing revere
Warm-up, List 1
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"Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death" by Patrick Henry (1775)
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100 SAT words Beginning with "R"
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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:
The site is considered holy to Christians – who revere it as the site of Jesus's last Supper – and to Jews who see it as the tomb of the biblical King David.
From BBC ● May 1, 2026
Under long‑standing arrangements, Jews may visit the compound -- which they revere as the site of the first and second Jewish temples -- but they are not permitted to pray there.
From Barron's ● Apr. 9, 2026
It blinds us to its biases, and serves as free marketing for the AI companies, who benefit when we fear and revere their creations.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 20, 2026
Kikuo and Shunsuke revere kabuki’s bygone giants, who are affixed with that moniker.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 20, 2026
I am disturbed by those who revere us far more than those who disdain us.
From "Scythe" by Neal Shusterman
“I would have sent a Paul Revere alarm up and down the Valley,” he said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 6, 2026
Both Revere, the patriot, and Copley, the successful portraitist becoming a rich man, would have understood the symbolism.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 5, 2026
“That was Walt’s thing. It all connects. I love that people can hopefully now connect both things. You can connect Tomorrowland and Walt with Paul Revere Williams.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 11, 2026
“UCLA, Memorial Park, Paul Revere, St. Bernard …” Bryant said, rattling off just a few of the sites his team practiced at while waiting for the green light to return to campus.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 29, 2026
So at last he saw Mr. Revere, a stocky, ruddy man, with fine, dark eyes, shutting his shop, taking out his key preparing to lock up.
From "Johnny Tremain" by Esther Hoskins Forbes
The 54-year-old has spent years collecting revolutionary memorabilia and reveres Castro as "the master."
From Barron's ● Aug. 11, 2026
As somebody who has come up through the department, who reveres it, what do the two sides of that coin look like?
From Slate ● Nov. 24, 2025
His wife, whom Mr. Murray plainly reveres, is a Quaker who doesn’t care all that much about the factual questions that bother him in this book.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 17, 2025
The second question on this foolproof rubric is, “Does the shark movie have a necessary degree of camp that both reveres and respects that it is, indeed, a shark movie?”
From Salon ● Jun. 8, 2025
One who reveres knowledge with superstitious awe, and whose worship of observation approaches the ecstatic.
From The Roycroft Dictionary Concocted by Ali Baba and the Bunch on Rainy Days. by Elbert Hubbard
Under a blazing sun, clad in black and clutching portraits of their slain leader Ali Khamenei, Iranian pilgrims streamed across the border into Iraq to observe the Arbaeen, the most revered event in Shia Islam.
From Barron's ● Aug. 1, 2026
Alan Greenspan was revered in the 1980s and 1990s for supporting the stock market, but retrospective views cloud his legacy.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 29, 2026
The shows were revered locally—in 2006, the town of Woodstock, N.Y., declared May 20 “Levon Helm Day”—and they carried on after the drummer’s death in 2012.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 25, 2026
Despite being revered as World Cup top scorer in 1958, Fontaine never got a Golden Boot - the award was not introduced until 1982.
From BBC ● Jul. 13, 2026
"Then why do men lower their voices when they speak of the warlocks of Qarth? All across the east, their power and wisdom are revered."
From "A Clash of Kings" by George R.R. Martin
The film purports to show how socioeconomic inequality is a result of “the cultural pendulum swinging too far towards revering things we consider ‘masculine,’ like individualism, power, and money,” according to the nonprofit’s website.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 26, 2026
"This tells me about the whole community, this tells me about how they were thinking, how they were behaving, how they were revering the heavens."
From BBC ● Jun. 17, 2026
Armstrong, who grew up revering Schulz, has a deep connection to Franklin.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 14, 2024
It wasn’t a big part, but Butler had grown up revering Tarantino’s work, and he wasn’t going to pass on the dream of working with him.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 21, 2022
And at his side, with awe revering him, There went the children of Hephaestus' seed, The hewers of the sacred way, who tame The stubborn tract that erst was wilderness.
From The House of Atreus by E. D. A. (Edmund Doidge Anderson) Morshead
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.
