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:
Melissa Gordon struggled to reconcile the godly woman she thought she knew with the details now emerging.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 24, 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
All campers who didn’t know their godly parentage were shoved into the Hermes cabin, and since the gods were kind of forgetful, that cabin was always overcrowded.
From "The Last Olympian" by Rick Riordan
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
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
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
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
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
“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
The last created and the first to fall; The noblest, frailest, godliest of all.
From Leaves of Life For Daily Inspiration by Margaret Bird Steinmetz
Random Word
Spin the wheel and learn a new word!
Get a wordDefinitions 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.
