sermonize

American  

[sur-muh-nahyz] / ˈsɜr məˌnaɪz /

especially British, sermonise

verb (used without object)

sermonized, sermonizing

1. to deliver or compose a sermon; preach.

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verb (used with object)

sermonized, sermonizing

1. to give exhortation to; lecture.

sermonize British  

/ ˈsɜːməˌnaɪz /

verb

1. to talk to or address (a person or audience) as if delivering a sermon

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Other Word Forms

• sermonizer
  noun

Etymology

Origin of sermonize

First recorded in 1625–35; sermon + -ize

Explanation

To sermonize is to lecture someone in the style of a minister delivering a sermon. The best teachers don't sermonize; they talk to students in a sincere and straightforward way. If you tell someone at length what they should do, especially if there's plenty of judgment and moral superiority in your speech, you sermonize. This verb can also be used simply to mean "give a sermon," so you could also say that you like church because your minister sermonizes so well. This was the earliest meaning of sermonize, which comes from the Latin sermo, "speech, conversation, or talk."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

sermonize sermonized sermonizing

Johnson said he didn’t mean to sermonize but it’s clear he’s the kind of artist who sees the stage as a pulpit and the arena as a church.

From Seattle Times ● Apr. 28, 2024

This upcoming Easter Sunday, he intends to sermonize on which one would prevail.

From Washington Post ● Apr. 7, 2020

With a zealous quickening, Brooks begins to sermonize, not about his own soul but the country’s.

From The New Yorker ● Apr. 29, 2019

Hill has a salty beard, smiling eyes and booming voice to sermonize about the suffering he sees so often in the Shenandoah Valley.

From Washington Times ● Nov. 12, 2018

My grandmother was the only white person who ever heard W. D. Fard sermonize, and she understood less than half of what he said.

From "Middlesex: A Novel" by Jeffrey Eugenides

“Haha You Clowns” isn’t like the old “Davey and Goliath” or “South Park,” which purposely sermonized.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 16, 2025

The Rev. Charles Cannon, pastor at St. Hilary’s Episcopal Church, sermonized about the temporariness of the community’s losses.

From Seattle Times ● Oct. 3, 2022

By the time he returned, nearly all of the churches that the Porter family had sermonized in along Lakeview Avenue and Union Avenue were rubble.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 27, 2020

John — called Preacher because he sermonized chickens — was the odd child out.

From Washington Post ● Jul. 17, 2020

He could talk morals to others in the grand manner, and with positive enjoyment, but to be sermonized himself secretly exasperated him because it constrained him and made him self-conscious.

From The Price of Love by Arnold Bennett

But Perkins hops so quickly from one outrageous death to another that his screenplay leaves little room for rumination amid his constant fatalist sermonizing.

From Salon ● Feb. 21, 2025

As a character, Miss Liza Jane combines the hauteur of opera diva Jessye Norman and the sermonizing wisdom of Maya Angelou.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 29, 2023

At times, Christian movies can feel formulaic and forced, sometimes preferring sermonizing to storytelling.

From Washington Times ● Aug. 24, 2023

This week, former NFL player Emmanuel Acho, sermonizing while staring into a Fox Sports 1 camera, even tried speaking directly to Tagovailoa.

From Washington Post ● Dec. 31, 2022

That is certainly very appropriate, and a good close to our rather sermonizing talk.

From The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted by Katharine Ellis Barrett