glorify
Americanverb (used with object)
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glorifies,
present (3rd person singular)
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glorified,
past participle, past
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glorifying
present participle
verb
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to make glorious
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to make more splendid; adorn
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to worship, exalt, or adore
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to extol
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to cause to seem more splendid or imposing than reality
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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glorifiernoun
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deglorifyverb (used with object)
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reglorifyverb (used with object)
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glorifiableadjective
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self-glorifiedadjective
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self-glorifyingadjective
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unglorifiedadjective
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unglorifyingadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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glorifysimple
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glorifiessimple
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have glorifiedperfect
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has glorifiedperfect
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am glorifyingprogressive
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are glorifyingprogressive
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is glorifyingprogressive
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have been glorifyingperfect progressive
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has been glorifyingperfect progressive
Past
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glorifiedsimple
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had glorifiedperfect
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was glorifyingprogressive
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were glorifyingprogressive
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had been glorifyingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of glorify
1300–50; Middle English < Old French glorifier < Late Latin glōrificāre. See glory, -fy
Explanation
To glorify is to praise or honor something or someone to an extreme degree. If you like someone, you might compliment or praise them, but glorifying takes that a step further. When something is glorified, it is praised to the highest degree possible. It seems right that great people like Martin Luther King and Gandhi are glorified. It can seem odd when athletes are glorified just for playing a game. Often this word is used in a negative sense. For example, a movie with lots of explosions could be said "to glorify violence."
Vocabulary lists containing glorify
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Shiloh
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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:
Her government is trying to sever the link between popular culture and the criminal underworld, denouncing narcocorridos, songs which glorify criminals, as well as tackling crime head on.
From BBC ● Aug. 6, 2026
Even so, “Princess Mononoke” doesn’t glorify violence or tilt the audience against people like Lady Eboshi, who is more like us than we’d probably admit.
From Salon ● Jul. 22, 2026
Nawrocki said Kyiv's "decision to glorify the UPA is not only outrageous" but also "deeply disappointing", undermining "reconciliation" between the two nations.
From Barron's ● Jun. 20, 2026
“The campaign to glorify him,” wrote one biographer in 1988, “has surpassed fanatic religious fervor. The North Korean ‘sun of the nation’ shines both day and night, and it is hard to escape his ubiquity.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 11, 2026
For there were twenty-four of them, each one given his night to preach—to shine, as it were, before men, and to glorify his Heavenly Father.
From "Go Tell It on the Mountain" by James Baldwin
Klee’s “National Socialist Revolution Drawings”—childlike works merging abstraction and expressionism—also challenged the Führer’s demand for “realism” that glorifies the Nordic‑German ideal of beauty.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 8, 2026
The press glorifies Dudamel as the next Leonard Bernstein one minute and looks for flaws anywhere it can find them the next.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 29, 2025
“He won’t play in a drama that glamorizes evil or glorifies violence. ‘I’m no nut on that,’ he says, ‘my pictures don’t have to carry a message — but they do have to say something.’
From New York Times ● Feb. 2, 2024
"However," it added, "this does not mean at all that the image glorifies these figures or attributes any dignity to them."
From BBC ● Jan. 11, 2024
At last, in age and want, in lodgings small and bare, they wait the prompter's call; and when the end is reached, maybe a vision glorifies the closing scene.
From The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 12 (of 12) Dresden Edition?Miscellany by Robert Green Ingersoll
In the meantime, her own Los Angeles abode became more of a glorified closet than a true home.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 3, 2026
Hiding away in a glorified ice chest would also have been a blow to the 80-year-old’s dignity.
From Salon ● Aug. 17, 2026
Writing off a team after a glorified friendly with key players on less than a week's training is just silly.
From BBC ● Aug. 16, 2026
In addition, Paoletta has glorified Thomas as a legal commentator for years, including in a book he edited and in a documentary that features 25 hours of interviews with Thomas about his life.
From Slate ● Aug. 4, 2026
The mud wall, short and pocked with holes, enclosed the tiny house—which was really not much more than a glorified hut.
From "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini
In Bosnia, by contrast, an opposition politician was sentenced to three years in prison for "glorifying" Karadžić and Mladić in January 2026.
From BBC ● Aug. 27, 2026
“You can put your effort into glorifying your cake with frosting, dreaming up an exciting trim that puts your own label on it.”
From Salon ● Jun. 14, 2026
“Duchamp Takes New York” readily conforms to the predictable narrative about the artist, glorifying his influence and spirit.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 12, 2026
Sansal may be free, but prominent French sports journalist Christophe Gleizes remains in an Algerian prison, sentenced to seven years for "glorifying terrorism" for having sought to interview an outlawed group.
From Barron's ● Nov. 13, 2025
The colors deepened, glorifying Ishtar and pushing Nergal into a darkness that verged on consuming existence.
From "City of the Plague God" by Sarwat Chadda
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.
