sermonize

American  

[sur-muh-nahyz] / ˈsɜr məˌnaɪz /

especially British, sermonise

verb (used without object)

sermonized, sermonizing

1. to deliver or compose a sermon; preach.

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verb (used with object)

sermonized, sermonizing

1. to give exhortation to; lecture.

sermonize British  

/ ˈsɜːməˌnaɪz /

verb

1. to talk to or address (a person or audience) as if delivering a sermon

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Other Word Forms

• sermonizer
  noun

Etymology

Origin of sermonize

First recorded in 1625–35; sermon + -ize

Explanation

To sermonize is to lecture someone in the style of a minister delivering a sermon. The best teachers don't sermonize; they talk to students in a sincere and straightforward way. If you tell someone at length what they should do, especially if there's plenty of judgment and moral superiority in your speech, you sermonize. This verb can also be used simply to mean "give a sermon," so you could also say that you like church because your minister sermonizes so well. This was the earliest meaning of sermonize, which comes from the Latin sermo, "speech, conversation, or talk."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

sermonize sermonized sermonizing

This upcoming Easter Sunday, he intends to sermonize on which one would prevail.

From Washington Post ● Apr. 7, 2020

His family attended weekly Mass to hear McGuire sermonize and took part in his spiritual retreats, events where McGuire began to acquire a cult-like following.

From Seattle Times ● Dec. 30, 2019

With a zealous quickening, Brooks begins to sermonize, not about his own soul but the country’s.

From The New Yorker ● Apr. 29, 2019

Hill has a salty beard, smiling eyes and booming voice to sermonize about the suffering he sees so often in the Shenandoah Valley.

From Washington Times ● Nov. 12, 2018

In the other room the woman twists the dial, and voices sermonize from the speaker.

From "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr

“Haha You Clowns” isn’t like the old “Davey and Goliath” or “South Park,” which purposely sermonized.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 16, 2025

The Rev. Charles Cannon, pastor at St. Hilary’s Episcopal Church, sermonized about the temporariness of the community’s losses.

From Seattle Times ● Oct. 3, 2022

By the time he returned, nearly all of the churches that the Porter family had sermonized in along Lakeview Avenue and Union Avenue were rubble.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 27, 2020

Catholic priests sermonized against the Molly Maguires, taking instructions from Philadelphia Bishop James Frederick Woods, who excommunicated them.

From Washington Times ● Jun. 30, 2018

Having sermonized upon the general features of the Reformation, we will resume the kind of discourse with which we at first set out.

From Bibliomania; or Book-Madness A Bibliographical Romance by Thomas Frognall Dibdin

It’s gripping and informative without sermonizing — everything a great documentary should be.

From Salon ● Feb. 28, 2025

This week, former NFL player Emmanuel Acho, sermonizing while staring into a Fox Sports 1 camera, even tried speaking directly to Tagovailoa.

From Washington Post ● Dec. 31, 2022

For artists who set out to make works about burning issues like climate change, there is always a danger of sliding into righteousness, or sermonizing.

From New York Times ● Sep. 15, 2022

No need to wait on a sermonizing dispatch from the Great American Lion of Letters.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 5, 2021

Without sermonizing, without logic even, the demon of pessimism, which has its home in an empty stomach, was expelled into spiritual darkness.

From Virginia by Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow