reverence
noun
a feeling or attitude of deep respect tinged with awe; veneration.
reverence
American
[rev-er-uhns, rev-ruhns]
/ ˈrɛv ər əns, ˈrɛv rəns /
noun
-
reverences
plural
-
a feeling or attitude of deep respect tinged with awe; veneration.
- Antonyms:
- contempt
-
the outward manifestation of this feeling.
to pay reverence.
-
a gesture indicative of deep respect; an obeisance, bow, or curtsy.
-
the state of being revered, or treated with respect tinged with awe.
-
(initial capital letter) a title used in addressing or mentioning a member of the clergy (usually preceded by your orhis ).
verb (used with object)
-
reverences,
present (3rd person singular)
-
reverenced,
past participle, past
-
reverencing
present participle
reverence
1
British
/ ˈrɛvərəns /
noun
-
a feeling or attitude of profound respect, usually reserved for the sacred or divine; devoted veneration
-
an outward manifestation of this feeling, esp a bow or act of obeisance
-
the state of being revered or commanding profound respect
-
archaic a form of apology for using an obscene or taboo expression
verb
Reverence
2
British
/ ˈrɛvərəns /
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
reverencesimple
-
reverencessimple
-
have reverencedperfect
-
has reverencedperfect
-
am reverencingprogressive
-
are reverencingprogressive
-
is reverencingprogressive
-
have been reverencingperfect progressive
-
has been reverencingperfect progressive
Past
-
reverencedsimple
-
had reverencedperfect
-
was reverencingprogressive
-
were reverencingprogressive
-
had been reverencingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of reverence
First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English, from Latin reverentia “respect, fear, awe”; equivalent to revere 1 + -ence
Explanation
Reverence is a feeling of deep respect or awe — like what you have for a president, a hero, or a favorite football player. Reverence can be a feeling of awe, and it can also describe how you treat someone, particularly when used with the word with. To treat someone "with reverence" is to show them intense respect. Your friends may respect you for your loyalty, though they probably do not bow to you with reverence every day.
Vocabulary lists containing reverence
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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:
Here, Moore shows reverence not only for her own craft, but for all the hopeful idealists who pine to know what it feels like to lose yourself in someone, or something, else.
From Salon ● Oct. 12, 2026
Much of my life is dedicated to preaching that art, and practicing reverence for it can be the glue that keeps us together when the world wants us torn apart.
From Salon ● Sep. 17, 2026
Perhaps the doubters did not grasp the reverence in which the softly spoken yet inspirational woman from Bray is held.
From BBC ● Sep. 6, 2026
Every element—the reverence for ingredients and the literary references baked into the plating—was unmistakably, deeply Chinese.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 1, 2026
She might be Isagol the Terrible, but one can’t be irredeemable who shows reverence for books.
From "Strange the Dreamer" by Laini Taylor
Eide Bailly and Reverence said they expect the deal to close in the third quarter.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 23, 2026
Reverence for the military—and the opportunities it brings—pervade the state.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 29, 2025
Reverence is a longer black diamond halfway along Rattlesnake Mountain with a few optional double black diamond features.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 6, 2024
Reverence radiates from Alberta Whittle’s textile hanging, floating on high, made from clothes — European, African — owned by her cosmopolitan Barbadian grandfather.
From New York Times ● Jun. 23, 2022
"After God, we have your Reverence to thank for our deliverance," said Magyari with warm feeling, holding his trembling little daughter by the hand.
From The Slaves of the Padishah by M?r J?kai
It seemed to me that there pervaded on that island one of the deepest respects and reverences for the dead.
From Time Magazine Archive
Manhattan's Metropolitan Museum has revered its precedents as it reverences its Rembrandts.
From Time Magazine Archive
“My father praised Robert without respite! So my behavior was disgracious. But such reverences, such empathies that existed between them, they are very combustible. Friendship is a calmer thing. Robert left Zedelgem in winter.”
From "Black Swan Green" by David Mitchell
This protects from intrusion their reverences the canons, who sit in stalls, exquisitely carved between the years 1475 and 1538.
From Southern Spain by A. F. (Albert Frederick) Calvert
This last was a great and special favorite with him, its lofty and beautiful spirit carrying his soul with it into those spiritual regions which the child mind reverences without understanding.
From Harper's Round Table, July 16, 1895 by Various
But Pi is precociously enlightened, his innocence not a problem to be rectified but a quality to be reverenced.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 9, 2025
Most white Americans were of British descent, they drew their political principles from English history, and they reverenced the king as protector of his people and their liberties.
From Textbooks ● Jan. 18, 2018
He went to Paris, where he lived with Theo, painted furiously and tried to become like the Impressionists, whom he reverenced.
From Time Magazine Archive
Leaving school two months after his sixteenth birthday in 1855, he soon became office-boy in a warehouse on a day since reverenced by the Rockefeller clan.
From Time Magazine Archive
I liked to read what they liked to read: what they enjoyed, delighted me; what they approved, I reverenced.
From "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë
In a land reverencing charismatic leadership and far-reaching intellect, he looks like a messenger boy and disparages his own brain.
From Time Magazine Archive
The caretaker’s wife was Irish, and a Catholic, reverencing the Church in all its manifestations.
From The Idler Magazine, Volume III, June 1893 An Illustrated Monthly by Various
For true religion comes not by violence, but chiefly, I think, from being brought up with good men, reverencing their ways and words.
From The Men of the Moss-Hags Being a history of adventure taken from the papers of William Gordon of Earlstoun in Galloway by S. R. (Samuel Rutherford) Crockett
My connections at home, although not Evangelical Christians, respected religion, and when I left, they counselled me to be always particular in observing the Lord's Day and reverencing it.
From The Little Gleaner, Vol. X. A Monthly Magazine for the Young by Various
He made every one stand and sit by turns, so that while one set were resting the other were reverencing the divine and angelic presences.
From Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England by Charles L. (Charles Latimer) Marson
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.
