adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of godly
First recorded before 1000; Middle English; Old English godlīc; God + -ly
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:
It’s been huge for me in terms of handling adversity and trying to see a godly perspective.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 10, 2026
His vanishing cultural presence also exposed another inconvenient fact—that he was hardly as godly as the memes made him out to be.
From Slate ● Mar. 20, 2026
"He was the most godly, humane, kind, gracious human being I think I've ever met," Alex Ryvchin of the Executive Council of Australia Jewry, told reporters at Bondi on Monday morning.
From BBC ● Dec. 15, 2025
Not that many of them will engage with the actual allegations against Brand, lest their view of him as a godly man get disturbed, but frankly, the details are shocking even in the #MeToo era.
From Salon ● Apr. 5, 2025
This was the sort of lordly boon they could imagine Alexander looking down upon from his godly vantage, and smiling.
From "Circumference" by Nicholas Nicastro
In these warm lines the heart will trust itself, as it will not to the tongue, and pour out the prophecy of a godlier existence than all the annals of heroism have yet made good.
From Essays — First Series by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Merryn: Sire, midnight should have ended Gormflaith's watch, But Gormflaith had another kind of will And ended at a godlier hour by slumber, A letter in her hand, the night-lamp out.
From Georgian Poetry 1913-15 by Sir Edward Howard Marsh
Are you a-come amongst us to make us wiser or richer or thriftier or godlier; or are you just a loafer,—a mere loafer?
From One Of Them by Charles James Lever
No grace can enter their souls without flowing on to mine; they could not be lifted up to a higher and godlier plane of life without drawing me up with them.
From The Warfare of the Soul Practical Studies in the Life of Temptation by Shirley C. Hughson
Sire, midnight should have ended Gormflaith's watch, But Gormflaith had another kind of will And ended at a godlier hour by slumber, A letter in her hand, the night-lamp out.
From King Lear's Wife; The Crier by Night; The Riding to Lithend; Midsummer-Eve; Laodice and Dana? by Gordon Bottomley
“This man is the godliest man that I have ever known,” Jill said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 28, 2019
“I hope voters aren’t trying to find the most Christian-y, godliest candidate out there, because who are we to judge one another’s level of faith, our Christian quote, quotient, if you will,” she said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 1, 2016
"I wanted to behave in the godliest way possible, and I opted to apologize for my tone and approach," she said.
From Slate ● Dec. 11, 2013
It is going to be so frightening, we are all going to tremble — even the godliest among us.”
From New York Times ● Apr. 29, 2011
His father was a cheerful and exemplary Christian, and his mother was the godliest woman I ever knew.
From Forty Years in South China The Life of Rev. John Van Nest Talmage, D.D. by John Gerardus Fagg
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.
