revere
verb (used with object)
to regard with respect tinged with awe; venerate.
revere
1 American
[ri-veer]
/ rɪˈvɪər /
verb (used with object)
-
reveres,
present (3rd person singular)
-
revered,
past participle, past
-
revering
present participle
revere
2
American
[ri-veer]
/ rɪˈvɪər /
noun
Revere
3
American
[ri-veer]
/ rɪˈvɪər /
noun
-
Paul, 1735–1818, American silversmith and patriot, famous for his night horseback ride, April 18, 1775, to warn Massachusetts colonists of the coming of British troops.
-
a city in E Massachusetts, on Massachusetts Bay, near Boston: seaside resort.
Revere
1
British
/ rɪˈvɪə /
noun
revere
2
British
/ rɪˈvɪə /
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
reveresimple
-
reveressimple
-
have reveredperfect
-
has reveredperfect
-
am reveringprogressive
-
are reveringprogressive
-
is reveringprogressive
-
have been reveringperfect progressive
-
has been reveringperfect progressive
Past
-
reveredsimple
-
had reveredperfect
-
was reveringprogressive
-
were reveringprogressive
-
had been reveringperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of revere
First recorded in 1655–65; from Latin reverērī, equivalent to re- re- + verērī “to stand in awe of, fear, feel reverence” (akin to ware 2 )
Explanation
Revere means to respect someone so deeply that you almost worship them. Many Americans revere civil rights activists like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks, who worked to make the country a more just place. Revere is related to the words reverence ("to hold something in worshipful awe") and its opposite — irreverent. Reverence for the irreverent is actually possible. Howard Stern humor is often vulgar and absurdly irreverent yet his legions of fans and even some media analysts revere him and his ability to maintain a loyal audience. Revere is the perfect word when respect is not strong enough but worship seems a little too religious-sounding. Rock stars, for example, are revered by throngs of devoted fans.
Vocabulary lists containing revere
Warm-up, List 1
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"Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death" by Patrick Henry (1775)
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100 SAT words Beginning with "R"
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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:
At the Louvre, the impulse is not to revere Franklin, gazing out from inside his vitrine, but to approach him—to bend down, to look him in the eye.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 12, 2026
The site is considered holy to Christians – who revere it as the site of Jesus's last Supper – and to Jews who see it as the tomb of the biblical King David.
From BBC ● May 1, 2026
Though Bhumibol's son inherited the throne about nine years ago, many still revere him as the nation's most steadfast figurehead -- and Sirikit as his constant companion.
From Barron's ● Oct. 26, 2025
Without anything divine to revere, American home and landscape design largely genuflects at the altar of the market.
From Salon ● Aug. 23, 2025
The one scientist they did revere, if begrudgingly, was Linus Pauling—the larger-than-life Caltech chemist who had recently announced that he had solved an important conundrum in the structure of proteins.
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
“I would have sent a Paul Revere alarm up and down the Valley,” he said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 6, 2026
Darren Walker, president of Anonymous Content, paid $4.2 million for a Paul Revere Williams-designed house in Los Angeles, filling it with sleek furnishings and a curated collection of Black art.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 28, 2026
He had become acquainted with Revere by 1763, and purchased things from him, mostly small silver frames, but the relationship did not last beyond 1770, the year of the Boston Massacre.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 5, 2026
“That was Walt’s thing. It all connects. I love that people can hopefully now connect both things. You can connect Tomorrowland and Walt with Paul Revere Williams.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 11, 2026
Done exactly as Johnny had started to do them before he talked with Mr. Revere.
From "Johnny Tremain" by Esther Hoskins Forbes
A Shiite cleric, he lives frugally and was brought up in a religious tradition that reveres martyrdom.
From Barron's ● Jan. 29, 2026
As somebody who has come up through the department, who reveres it, what do the two sides of that coin look like?
From Slate ● Nov. 24, 2025
His wife, whom Mr. Murray plainly reveres, is a Quaker who doesn’t care all that much about the factual questions that bother him in this book.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 17, 2025
Clayton Kershaw was at the center of the Dodgers experience over the last 18 years, becoming a legend for the team and a city that reveres its sports legends.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 18, 2025
Yet he reveres the countess; and, I fear, Will spy more sin, in doubts that wound her quiet, Than in my stifling them.
From The Count of Narbonne A Tragedy, in Five Acts by Robert Jephson
Over the course of his career, Ogogo won numerous awards and earned critical acclaim for his role in the movie Anikulapo, where he played the Alaafin of Oyo - the most revered king in Yorubaland.
From BBC ● Aug. 24, 2026
Or should that be “was”? In 1979 he published an acclaimed volume of poetry that remains revered in certain, very small, circles.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 6, 2026
Under a blazing sun, clad in black and clutching portraits of their slain leader Ali Khamenei, Iranian pilgrims streamed across the border into Iraq to observe the Arbaeen, the most revered event in Shia Islam.
From Barron's ● Aug. 1, 2026
It came in a rigid plastic triangle sealed with peel-and-stick film—a transparent reliquary for something nobody revered.
From Salon ● Jul. 30, 2026
Soldiers and war heroes are honored and commemorated, explorers are granted immortal fame, martyrs are revered, but how many people look upon women too as soldiers?
From "The Diary of a Young Girl" by Anne Frank
The film purports to show how socioeconomic inequality is a result of “the cultural pendulum swinging too far towards revering things we consider ‘masculine,’ like individualism, power, and money,” according to the nonprofit’s website.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 26, 2026
"This tells me about the whole community, this tells me about how they were thinking, how they were behaving, how they were revering the heavens."
From BBC ● Jun. 17, 2026
But know this: Parenting culture is moving toward greater respect for all while still caring for and revering our elders.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 22, 2023
In the small West Texas town of Muleshoe, where two of college football’s foremost masterminds were made, Wes Wood grew up revering Lincoln Riley.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 8, 2023
But thou art frustrated in thy marriage with this unhappy virgin, whom I betrothed to thee, revering thy friendship.
From The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. by Euripides
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.
