saintly
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of saintly
Explanation
If someone is saintly, they're so perfect that they're almost too good to be true. A truly saintly person spends her life helping others. Saintly people are extremely kind and virtuous, modeling themselves after actual saints, people who are canonized by the Catholic church after death and are believed to be in heaven. You can also use this adjective to describe things that have to do with saints, like a saintly painting or a saintly relic. Both saintly and saint are rooted in the Latin sanctus, "holy or consecrated."
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:
If Mariam is the film’s heartbreaking figure, Abbass brings complexity to the character, never letting her be a saintly victim.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 1, 2026
What emerges is a saintly portrait of Epstein, whose relationship with the Beatles, in the words of his lawyer, “was something mystical.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 12, 2026
With saintly calm, the too-good-for-him Dr. Barrett packs her things and returns to her peaceful castle.
From Salon ● Mar. 8, 2026
Or as close to saintly as anything involving tar sands can get.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 9, 2025
Nailer waited, hoping for some mention of the saintly Captain Sung.
From "Ship Breaker" by Paolo Bacigalupi
They care about telling themselves that their profession is saintlier than it is, and they’re superior to the reformed liar who wants to work with them.
From Slate ● Jan. 28, 2014
Or higher, holier, saintlier when, as now, All nature sacerdotal seems, and thou.
From Poems by Francis Thompson
No one of the bishops or abbots would stir out for their detected dead fellow, but “to desert him in his last need” was impossible to his saintlier brother.
From Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England by Charles L. (Charles Latimer) Marson
And he was probably saintlier than they were, because he was their child.
From Recollections and Impressions 1822-1890 by Octavius Brooks Frothingham
Nothing could be whiter; nothing could be purer; nothing could be saintlier of aspect.
From What Is Man? and Other Essays by Mark Twain
Yet, before turning the relic over to the police, Brand said he was on his saintliest behavior.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 21, 2022
Moreover, in all but the saintliest circles, forgiveness may be a luxury that depends upon a certain surrounding stability.
From Time Magazine Archive
Few there were to touch, few to remember, even the saintliest life lived in a noble narrowness, a noble silence.
From V. V.'s Eyes by Henry Sydnor Harrison
As abbess, she enjoyed the friendship and respect of some of the saintliest and greatest characters of the age, even of such a man as Peter the Venerable, abbot of Cluny.
From Beacon Lights of History, Volume 07 Great Women by John Lord
More than thirty years have passed since that University thus publicly preferred a p. 31dog smootherer to one of the noblest of teachers and saintliest of men.
From Great Testimony against scientific cruelty by Stephen Coleridge
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