revered
Americanadjective
verb
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of revered
Explanation
If someone is revered, it means he or she is held in deep respect and devotion. Religious leaders, saints, and martyrs are often considered as revered. Celebrities? Not so much. There's a touch of the other worldly about revered. The origins of revered reveal something about its slightly scary, awesome nature. It comes from the Latin word revereri, meaning "to fear," and the addition of the "re" at the beginning is an expression of intensive force, so the word literally means "to greatly fear." People whom are revered are not necessarily those we feel most comfortable around; we are too busy holding them in awe.
Vocabulary lists containing revered
The Ear, the Eye and the Arm
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The Odyssey
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We Are the Ants
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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.
Ms. Weingarten’s predecessor Albert Shanker, the most revered and powerful teachers-union leader in history, eventually came to appreciate the problem but couldn’t get his own union to change course.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 4, 2026
It was an eye-catching conjecture: one of the most revered of the Founding Fathers subjecting people held against their will to possibly painful shocks.
From Salon ● Sep. 25, 2026
Now comes nerve-jangling Korean director Na Hong-jin, long a revered force in genre cinema thanks to “The Yellow Sea” and “The Wailing,” with his own bid for immortality, the alien-monster tempest “Hope.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 11, 2026
Our creativity and innovation, how we made music and movies and clothes and vaccines and lifesaving drugs and consumer goods revered the world over.
From Slate ● Sep. 11, 2026
Kama the most revered warrior of them all.
From "The God of Small Things" by Arundhati Roy
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.
