hymn
Americannoun
verb (used with object)
verb (used without object)
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
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hymnssimple
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have hymnedperfect
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has hymnedperfect
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am hymningprogressive
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are hymningprogressive
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is hymningprogressive
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have been hymningperfect progressive
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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:
The work features four vocal soloists who represent Native American, Sephardic, African American and Protestant religious traditions, along with instrumental music based on early American hymn tunes.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 2, 2026
Her last true classic, it was a hymn to the liberating power of the club.
From BBC ● Jul. 2, 2026
The specifics of Martha Graham’s choreography notwithstanding, it is the bright openness of Copland’s music, its resolutely optimistic cast—particularly his reworking of the Shaker hymn “Simple Gifts”—that has implanted itself in the national imagination.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 30, 2026
Perhaps the organizers thought the crowd wouldn’t dare boo during a patriotic hymn.
From Salon ● Jun. 11, 2026
“America’s finest coming in the nick of time,” Ben shouted as his father hummed the Marine Corps hymn.
From "The Great Santini" by Pat Conroy
The evangelist Billy Graham solidified his appeal by supplanting hymns with the style of music to which teens and young adults flocked; Broadway even chimed in with the rock opera “Jesus Christ Superstar.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 19, 2026
From every camp come hymns to the principle of free passage without saying how to uphold it in present circumstances.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 10, 2026
"The gospel music we grew up on was hymns and traditional music," says Rutendo.
From BBC ● Mar. 6, 2026
Some inmates told visitors they could hear the national anthem and hymns sung by families who have held vigils nearby for the past two nights.
From Barron's ● Jan. 10, 2026
Late in the evening we will sometimes pull into the dirt parking lot of a clapboard praise house and listen to old, dark Gullah hymns rising out the windows.
From "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver
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
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
Happiness, as hymned in these renditions, would never be won easily.
From New York Times ● Aug. 3, 2016
He first cropped up on the opening track of 2010's award-winning Queen of Denmark, hymned as Grant's "one and only".
From The Guardian ● Mar. 7, 2013
So sings Milton to the sweet Birdmonth—he whose mighty mind "nigh sphered in Heaven," hymned the soft beauty of the first day that dawned upon the infant world, which surely must have been a May-morning.
From Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants by Head, James H.
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
Saving money, saving if from an occasion and saving it when there is a change of hymning, changing the whole escape that is not a rhapsody, it is the place of thunder.
From Matisse Picasso and Gertrude Stein With Two Shorter Stories by Stein, Gertrude
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.
