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

In the other room the woman twists the dial, and voices sermonize from the speaker.

From "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr

“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

One after another, religious leaders of all faiths sermonized next to a home-made altar with Pope Francis’s image on the front, along with people carrying beatified images of Cesar Chavez, Mahatma Gandhi and Dorothy Day.

From Washington Post ● Sep. 23, 2015

Then as one man they jumped to their feet and by reason of prolonged cheering gave national impulse to a thought which has since been sermonized from thousands of pulpits.

From Laugh and Live by Fairbanks, Douglas

It’s gripping and informative without sermonizing — everything a great documentary should be.

From Salon ● Feb. 28, 2025

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

No need to wait on a sermonizing dispatch from the Great American Lion of Letters.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 5, 2021

This “Hillbilly Elegy” has stripped away the most sermonizing, debatable parts of the book, but it’s also denuded it of any deeper purpose, leaving us with a cosplay shell of A-list actors chewing rural scenery.

From Washington Times ● Nov. 10, 2020

An author may have a great influence for good, but that influence can be obtained, not by deliberate sermonizing, but only by tone of healthy sentiment which insensibly elevates the reader's mind.

From A History of English Prose Fiction by Tuckerman, Bayard