hymn
Americannoun
-
hymns
plural
verb (used with object)
-
hymns,
present (3rd person singular)
-
hymned,
past participle, past
-
hymning
present participle
verb (used without object)
-
hymns,
present (3rd person singular)
-
hymned,
past participle, past
-
hymning
present participle
noun
-
a Christian song of praise sung to God or a saint
-
a similar song praising other gods, a nation, etc
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
hymnsimple
-
hymnssimple
-
have hymnedperfect
-
has hymnedperfect
-
am hymningprogressive
-
are hymningprogressive
-
is hymningprogressive
-
have been hymningperfect progressive
-
has been hymningperfect progressive
Past
-
hymnedsimple
-
had hymnedperfect
-
was hymningprogressive
-
were hymningprogressive
-
had been hymningperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of hymn
before 1000; < Latin hymnus < Greek hýmnos song in praise of gods or heroes; replacing Middle English ymne (< Old French ) and Old English ymn (< Late Latin ymnus )
Explanation
A hymn is a religious song, especially one praising God. People often sing hymns during church services. The word hymn comes from the Late Latin hymnus, "song of praise," and the Greek hymnos, "festive song in praise of gods or heroes." Though many people think of hymns as Christian, they're used in many other religions too, from ancient Greek hymns to deities, to Sikh hymns and Hindu hymns to many gods. What these songs have in common is giving thanks or praise to a god or gods.
Vocabulary lists containing hymn
Poetry: Genres
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Reading: Literature - Poetry - Middle School
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"Martin's Big Words: The Life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr." and "I Have a Dream"
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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:
If you want to find an observer singing from the same hymn sheet, sooner or later you will hit pay dirt.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 28, 2026
But that’s the point of “Rock*.” It’s a lopsided hymn of praise to music—all music—that changes lives for very particular and ultimately unfathomable reasons.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 18, 2026
Her last true classic, it was a hymn to the liberating power of the club.
From BBC ● Jul. 2, 2026
Perhaps the organizers thought the crowd wouldn’t dare boo during a patriotic hymn.
From Salon ● Jun. 11, 2026
The priest gave him a piece of paper with the words to a hymn on it and asked him to sing.
From "Ugly" by Robert Hoge
Through subtle harmonic shifts on “Crepuscule With Nellie,” perhaps Monk’s loveliest melody, he accentuates the song’s inherent connection to blues and church hymns.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 19, 2026
Throughout the process, they "fellowshipped, sang hymns, and prayed until most of them were released," it added.
From BBC ● Jun. 15, 2026
On a typical day, an American family would be more likely to entertain itself at home by singing traditional folk songs like “Barbara Allen,” patriotic songs such as “Yankee Doodle” or hymns like “Amazing Grace.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 15, 2026
Christian priests recited prayers and hymns were sung, before the body was taken for cremation.
From BBC ● Jan. 26, 2026
For some reason, playing the hymns had made me feel sad, as if I were homesick even though I was at home.
From "Z for Zachariah" by Robert C. O’Brien
After living for two years in a small cabin beside Walden Pond, near Concord, Massachusetts, he hymned the results in his classic account Walden, published in 1854.
From Textbooks ● Jan. 18, 2018
Two of the credited writers, he says, had probably never even been to West Virginia when they hymned the beauty of its valleys and rivers.
From New York Times ● Aug. 16, 2017
A beauty spot hymned by the Romantics and the Victorians was blown apart and half of it reduced to rubble which was loaded on to ships and carted off to Dagenham to make Ford cars.
From The Guardian ● May 23, 2017
That has changed, or has seemed to change, recently, with Marine taking on a group of surreptitious haute-fonctionnaire “Horaces”—the name is a reference to the great if obsequious Roman poet who hymned the emperor Augustus.
From The New Yorker ● Mar. 30, 2017
Every voice Of bard in every age has hymned me.
From The Epic of Hades In Three Books by Sir Lewis Morris
Holst leaves the listener in the far removes of outer space, with Neptune being a study in musical mysticism, highlighted by a hidden hymning women’s chorus, as if heard from a mysterious distance.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 15, 2023
And the poet and theorist Fred Moten, for his hymning of knowledge’s “undercommons,” its deviant intellectual crosscurrents and flight-paths, “fugitive enlightenment.”
From New York Times ● Jan. 20, 2022
Bush went beyond hymning the “thousand points of light” to oversee the establishment of the Commission on National and Community Service.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 3, 2018
It’s a useful rejoinder to evangelists hymning the inevitable progress of “tech,” and gurus divining what technology “wants.”
From Slate ● Jun. 1, 2015
The Venetian painters delighted to put musical instruments into the hands of their child-angels, representing them as choristers, hymning the praises of the infant Saviour.
From Child-life in Art by Estelle M. (Estelle May) Hurll
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.
