apotheosize
Americanverb (used with object)
verb
-
to deify
-
to glorify or idealize
Etymology
Origin of apotheosize
First recorded in 1750–60; apotheos(is) + -ize
Explanation
To apotheosize is to worship someone or something, almost as if they were a god. When the most popular teacher in school retires, her former students might start to apotheosize her. When you apotheosize, you deify or glorify, your admiration and respect becoming so exaggerated that you might be talking about a deity instead of a human: "Beyoncé is a goddess!" This verb comes from the Greek apotheosis and its roots, apo, "change," and theos, "god." Now you know the perfect word to describe what happens when you talk about your favorite basketball player!
Vocabulary lists containing apotheosize
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 hovering brush strokes and vertiginous layering of an emerald Laura Owens canvas apotheosize Photoshop techniques.
From New York Times ● Jul. 13, 2022
How did the unifying centrist apotheosize into the Notorious RBG, a revered icon of fiery dissent?
From Washington Post ● Nov. 8, 2018
Now, though, Lewis has taken on his most difficult challenge: He has chosen to apotheosize three obscure government agencies — the Department of Energy, the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Commerce.
From New York Times ● Oct. 8, 2018
To apotheosize the clichés of the genre while subverting them is a neat trick, but the cadre pulls it off.
From Time ● Apr. 16, 2010
I do not wish to drift into a cheap cynicism, and apotheosize the old days at the expense of the new.
From Children's Rights A book of nursery logic by Wiggin, Kate Douglas Smith
And, while very soon he would be dead, at this precise moment Elvis Presley was apotheosized.
From New York Times ● Jun. 23, 2022
Yet he maintained that apotheosized idea of the city, born from those formative years of consuming “Talk of the Town” items and witticisms from Algonquin alumni.
From New York Times ● Dec. 14, 2021
In this, the Media Lab has apotheosized the capitalistic philosophy of its parent institution, which in the 20th century pioneered the now-common nexus between academic science and private industry.
From Slate
Both had drowned in the Nile, and victims so chosen by the god of the Nile were automatically apotheosized, as a Greek might be by a lightning bolt from Zeus.
From Time Magazine Archive
He was thus apotheosized, and took his place among the gods of China.
From Myths and Legends of China by Werner, E. T. C. (Edward Theodore Chalmers)
Even the most lurid forms of behavior are accorded the same apotheosizing gloss.
From New York Times ● Feb. 23, 2018
While posing as the apostle of light, you will obscure the scintillations of the stars because the sun is hid; while apotheosizing Happiness you would banish Hope, that mother of which it is born.
From Brann the Iconoclast — Volume 01 by Brann, William Cowper
And in what land has the apotheosizing imagination been more active than in Japan?
From Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic by Gulick, Sidney Lewis
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.
