idolatry

American  

[ahy-dol-uh-tree] / aɪˈdɒl ə tri /

noun

• idolatries
  plural

1. the religious worship of idols.

2. excessive or blind adoration, reverence, devotion, etc.

   Synonyms:

   mania, madness, obsession

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idolatry British  

/ aɪˈdɒlətrɪ /

noun

1. the worship of idols

2. great devotion or reverence

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Usage

What does idolatry mean? Idolatry is the worship of an idol or idols—objects or images, such as statues, that are worshipped as the representations of deities or gods. The word idol can also refer to the deity or god that is being worshipped. Idolatry is sometimes called idol worship and the people who worship idols can be called idolaters. The adjective idolatrous can be used to describe idolaters or their practices. This sense of idolatry and its related terms are typically used in a negative, judgmental way, implying that the god that the idol represents is not actually real and that such idolatry is wrong or sinful. In this way, an idol is sometimes called a false idol. A well-known example of idolatry mentioned in a story in the Bible involves a statue of a golden calf that the Israelites were said to have made while Moses was away receiving the Ten Commandments (which prohibit idolatry and the worship of “graven images”). Sometimes, idol is used in a metaphorical way to compare something to an object of religious devotion and worship, and such devotion can also be called idolatry, as in The endless pursuit of wealth is a form of idolatry. This sense of the word is also used in a critical way. Idol is also commonly used in a figurative way to refer to a person, especially a famous celebrity such as a pop singer, whom someone treats with extreme admiration and devotion. The word sometimes implies that such devotion is excessive, likening it to religious worship. The word idolatry can be used to refer to this kind of fandom, but it is much more commonly used in a religious context. Example: Most people don’t bow down before statues, but they engage in other forms of idolatry, like an obsession with material possessions.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• idolater
  noun
• idolatress
  noun
• idolatrousness
  noun
• self-idolatry
  noun
• idolatrous
  adjective
• idolatrously
  adverb

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• idolatries
  plural

Etymology

Origin of idolatry

1200–50; Middle English idolatrie < Medieval Latin īdōlatrīa, by haplology from Late Latin īdōlolatrīa Greek (NT) eidōlolatreía. See idol, -latry

Explanation

Idolatry means the worship of images as if they were gods. Many religions prohibit idolatry, some even to the extent of forbidding any representational objects in houses of worship. Idol sits at the head of the word idolatry. If you worship — or even just look up to — a person or a thing, you are said to idolize them. For some modern idolaters, money is their idol, while for others it is celebrities, and for still others their jobs.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

idolatry idolatries

Gold is the color of false idolatry, the material of gratuitous wealth, a hallmark of authoritarian style, and a metaphor for the folly of prioritizing personal enrichment and glory over everything else.

From Slate ● Jun. 11, 2026

"Honor is not worship. Respect is not idolatry."

From Barron's ● May 8, 2026

“Enough of the idolatry of self and money! Enough of the display of power! Enough of war,” the pope said during a prayer service in St. Peter’s Basilica.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 12, 2026

You can't play idolatry, you have to play her.

From Salon ● May 9, 2025

She must have looked into our eyes and seen the shining idolatry there and understood that she was trapped.

From "East of Eden" by John Steinbeck

Nuclear is to conventional war what the monotheism of the avenging God was to the old amiably human and relatively harmless idolatries of polytheism.

From Time Magazine Archive

Questioning the shibboleths of current idolatries, he moves many to think, to question and to differ.

From Time Magazine Archive

Read is an atheist of religious temperament who has achieved the rare feat of transferring his natural reverence from God to God's creation without falling into current humanistic idolatries about man.

From Time Magazine Archive

We pursue the same end,—progressive improvement, association, transformation of the corrupted medium in which we are now living, the overthrow of all idolatries, shams, lies, and conventionalities.

From English Secularism A Confession Of Belief by George Jacob Holyoake

For lack of teaching they had remained in their idolatries as before, without giving up usury, oppression, false swearing, and the feuds in which they had been brought up to have perpetual enmities.

From The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 30 of 55 Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century, Volume XXX, 1640 by Antonio Alvarez de Abreu

Related Words

• adulation