a feeling or attitude of deep respect tinged with awe; veneration.
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 ).
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
First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English, from Latin reverentia “respect, fear, awe”; equivalent to revere 1 + -ence
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.
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Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Now, as the trial of Tyler Robinson, Kirk’s alleged killer, begins, something has replaced that reverence.
From Slate ● Jul. 27, 2026
While Aang’s saga follows the trajectory of Western fantasies that revolve around a Chosen One, his stubborn insistence on nonviolence and befriending perceived enemies reflects Miyazaki’s reverence for empathy, innocence and life’s natural beauty.
From Salon ● Jul. 8, 2026
Veda’s evil can also feel anachronistic, especially in today’s world of nepo-baby jokes, “immigrants get it done!” and reverence of rags-to-riches stories.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 29, 2026
Even North Korea, which plasters pictures of leader Kim Jong Un across the country and demands reverence, does not feature him in the passport, which instead depicts sacred Mount Paektu.
From Barron's ● Apr. 28, 2026
Lexie sighed and set upon the rack with reverence.
From "Little Fires Everywhere" by Celeste Ng
Accounting firm Eide Bailly agreed to sell a stake to Reverence Capital Partners, a move to implement artificial intelligence at a faster pace for itself and its clients.
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
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
He is the author of “Solemn Reverence: The Separation of Church and State in American Life.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 27, 2022
Her sober and courteous Deportment,121 and the Goodness of her Temper, have procured her both Love and Reverence.
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
A good Egyptian reverences three things beyond all others,—the gods, the pharaoh, and his own mother.”
From The Pharaoh and the Priest An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt by Glovatski, Alexander
He so reverences veracity, honour, and good faith, as to expect them like the daylight, and hears of their violation with a flush of scorn.
From The Principles Of Secularism by Holyoake, George Jacob
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
Shensi is reverenced as the birthplace of the Chinese nation, and when the country was first unified by the Ch'in dynasty in 221 B.C., its capital was near present-day Sian.
From Time Magazine Archive
Leaving school two months after his sixteenth birthday in 1855, he soon became office-boy in a warehouse on a day since reverenced by the Rockefeller clan.
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 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 Goodwin, Maud Wilder
I do not yield to any one in honoring and reverencing the noble and patriotic men who were in the councils of the nation during the terrible struggle with the rebellion.
From Monopolies and the People by Cloud, D. C.
And they charged him saying, Regard this mirror precisely as if it were our august spirit, and reverence it as if reverencing us.
From Japan by Murray, David
They reverently bore them—reverencing the beauty, and above all reverencing them as the work of One who had given him aid to think of their creation, and to embody them according to the pure conception.
From Papers from Overlook-House by Almore, Casper
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.
