hero worship
noun
a profound reverence for great people or their memory.
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hero worship
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hero-worship
hero-worshipverb (used with object)to feel or express hero worship for.
hero worship
1 Americannoun
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a profound reverence for great people or their memory.
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extravagant or excessive admiration for a personal hero.
hero-worship
2
American
[heer-oh-wur-ship]
/ ˈhɪər oʊˌwɜr ʃɪp /
verb (used with object)
hero-worshiped,
hero-worshiping,
hero-worshipped,
hero-worshipping
hero worship
British
noun
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admiration for heroes or idealized persons
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worship by the ancient Greeks and Romans of heroes
verb
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of hero worship1
First recorded in 1765–75
Origin of hero-worship2
First recorded in 1880–85
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 hero worship was taken too far when first one fan, then another, then another raced on to the pitch to get a selfie.
From BBC ● Aug. 12, 2026
Instead, “Him” wonders what kind of spiritual practice it is: hero worship or a sinister cult?
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 19, 2025
Herbert wrote about his distrust — hatred, even — of hero worship and how it influenced Dune for the July 1980 issue of Omni Magazine.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 27, 2024
So yeah, we need to get rid of that sort of hero worship.
From Salon ● Sep. 1, 2023
Lamont gazed up at Nigel with hero worship in his eyes.
From "Secrets at Sea" by Richard Peck
The campers’ hero-worship of the staff … the inspiring dance montage … the angelic voices in the big finale.
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 24, 2023
One wonders if Darick Robertson and Garth Ennis, the original comic book creators of "The Boys" imagined society would veer so close to realizing the twisted hero-worship parody they fashioned.
From Salon ● Jun. 5, 2022
She also describes a strange shift in rebellious hero-worship, at least among boys.
From The Guardian ● Apr. 8, 2017
I never grew out of my childhood hero-worship of Prince.
From New York Times ● Apr. 22, 2016
Maybe I’m still seeing with my old, hero-worship eyes, but what I saw was this: He was excellent.
From "The Sun Is Also a Star" by Nicola Yoon
“There was a crowd of girls who almost hero-worshiped her,” said Sheena Harris, a triathlete in Squamish.
From New York Times ● Apr. 8, 2016
This is a generous book, giving abundant credit to both the older generation of cartoonists whom the young Mr. Mankoff hero-worshiped to the new blood he has brought to the magazine during his tenure.
From New York Times ● Mar. 19, 2014
Line, a veteran of the South Viet Nam fighting, finds the lieutenant he hero-worshiped left with the mind of an eight-year-old as the result of a shrapnel wound.
From Time Magazine Archive
She went to movies and the races, hero-worshiped James Stewart, as a coed at U.C.L.A. noisily rooted for the football team.
From Time Magazine Archive
And as for the undergraduates who had hero-worshiped this former tennis champion, they now shyly turned to him for counsel and advice.
From How To Write Special Feature Articles A Handbook for Reporters, Correspondents and Free-Lance Writers Who Desire to Contribute to Popular Magazines and Magazine Sections of Newspapers by Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
“I have been, like, hero-worshiping you,” said Representative Donna Edwards of Maryland.
From New York Times ● Oct. 14, 2014
Others supported the girl, saying she was a victim of what they believed was a hero-worshiping culture built around football players who think they can do no wrong.
From New York Times ● Dec. 17, 2012
THEN: After the Senators clinched the 1933 pennant, Cronin was "besieged in the clubhouse by a hero-worshiping throng of thousands of fans of both sexes gone mildly mad," according to a Sept.
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 21, 2012
An hour of musical fantasy, starring Child Actor Eddie Hodges as a daydreaming, hero-worshiping youngster more or less like Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz.
From Time Magazine Archive
All morning, Mr. Hicks had made friends of the hero-worshiping youths, who listened to his tales of athletic triumphs at Bannister and at old Yale breathlessly.
From T. Haviland Hicks Senior by J. Raymond Elderdice
Both men relied on political bases that hero-worshipped, often to the disbelief of the outside world.
From The New Yorker ● Sep. 8, 2019
Besides, Dafoe himself has never hero-worshipped artistic suffering.
From The Guardian ● Nov. 19, 2018
Although hero-worshipped, this great man never received Nobel recognition for his most famous work—relativity.
From Textbooks ● Aug. 12, 2015
When I was 11, I hero-worshipped the Tigers’ shortstop because I could imagine growing up to take his place.
From Slate ● Apr. 15, 2013
It felt surreal, to see the man standing not ten yards away from him, after having hero-worshipped him from afar for nearly a decade, after having laughed at every YouTube joke.
From "When Dimple Met Rishi" by Sandhya Menon
He seemed "curiously uncurious about ideas on how to tame hero-worshipping or robust decision-making mechanisms."
From Salon ● Sep. 10, 2022
It was not long-lived: Sports readers, it turns out, didn’t like even occasional interruptions in their hero-worshipping routines.
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 5, 2021
He enrolled at the Kunstakademie, an avant-garde hotbed soon dominated by Joseph Beuys, the shamanistic godfather of conceptualism—although Richter was always highly skeptical of the hero-worshipping claque Beuys gathered around himself.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 14, 2016
The film is based on Thorson's published memoir, and inevitably assumes a position similar to that of the critical hero-worshipping Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby.
From The Guardian ● Jun. 8, 2013
He wasn't just hero-worshipping and imitating, just spinning some self-centred romance.
From Mr. Britling Sees It Through by H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
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.
