solemnize
Americanverb (used with object)
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solemnizes,
present (3rd person singular)
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solemnized,
past participle, past
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solemnizing
present participle
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to perform the ceremony of (marriage).
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to hold or perform (ceremonies, rites, etc.) in due manner.
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to observe or commemorate with rites or ceremonies.
to solemnize an occasion with prayer.
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to go through with ceremony or formality.
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to render solemn, serious, or grave; dignify.
verb (used without object)
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solemnizes,
present (3rd person singular)
-
solemnized,
past participle, past
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solemnizing
present participle
verb
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to celebrate or observe with rites or formal ceremonies, as a religious occasion
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to celebrate or perform the ceremony of (marriage)
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to make solemn or serious
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to perform or hold (ceremonies, etc) in due manner
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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solemnizesimple
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solemnizessimple
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have solemnizedperfect
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has solemnizedperfect
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am solemnizingprogressive
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are solemnizingprogressive
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is solemnizingprogressive
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have been solemnizingperfect progressive
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has been solemnizingperfect progressive
Past
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solemnizedsimple
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had solemnizedperfect
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was solemnizingprogressive
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were solemnizingprogressive
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had been solemnizingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of solemnize
1350–1400; Middle English solempnise < Medieval Latin sōlemnizāre, equivalent to Latin sōlemnis solemn + -izāre -ize
Explanation
When you solemnize something, you make it serious or dignified. You might solemnize a meal by lighting candles and saying grace before you eat. How much fun is it to get to pronounce a letter that is normally silent? You'll know when you wrap your tongue around this one, in which the n, normally silent in solemn, gets to introduce the suffix -ize. Even more fun is the fact that solemnize has a Greek suffix tacked onto a Latin root, sollemnis, or "formal, ceremonial, traditional." But we shouldn't be having so much fun with a verb whose meaning is "perform with dignity or gravity."
Vocabulary lists containing solemnize
"The Lady, or the Tiger?" by Frank R. Stockton
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Hard Times
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As You Like It
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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:
There’s the subgenre focusing on Electoral College math and the architecture of the rites that solemnize the delivery of results.
From Slate ● Jul. 22, 2024
Nine years later, when the United Kingdom allowed same-sex couples to solemnize their marriages in religious ceremonies, Ortega-Medina and his husband married in a Jewish ceremony at West London Synagogue.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 18, 2023
It’s a practice that in America has dated back to Colonial times when it was sometimes difficult to find a preacher to solemnize a marriage.
From Washington Times ● Apr. 10, 2022
In choosing a scholar over a satirist, the Correspondents’ Association had sought to solemnize a dinner known for its comedic puncturing of the Washington bubble.
From New York Times ● Apr. 28, 2019
And whon your honors mean to solemnize The bargain of your faith.
From Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (2nd 100 Pages) by Noah Webster
This is followed by an audience participation segment, in which Edna solemnizes the marriage between two perfect strangers, one of whom happened to be already married.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 29, 2015
It solemnizes and legitimizes and dignifies those who have departed into the squalid indignity of death, departed in a way so inhuman that humanity wants to pile on posthumous kindnesses, posthumous significances.
From Time Magazine Archive
To those who are beautiful—and poor Peggy had possessed that frequently fatal gift—death in its first stage, bestows an expression of mournful tenderness that softens while it solemnizes the heart.
From The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of William Carleton, Volume Three by William Carleton
She grows every leaf, and opens every flower, and solemnizes every bird-marriage, and utters every hymn of praise in the truthful and innate spontaneity of her universal soul.
If they are published in two different parishes the clergyman of one parish must give a certificate of publication, which must be delivered to the clergyman who solemnizes the marriage.
From Marriage and Divorce Laws of the World by Hyacinthe Ringrose
They lured religious leaders out of their homes by pretending to need a marriage solemnized.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 10, 2023
The couple’s Nov. 29 marriage took place at the clerk’s office of the County of Nevada in Nevada City, Calif. Carrie McReynolds, the deputy commissioner of marriages, solemnized their license.
From New York Times ● Dec. 3, 2021
A grand boldness solemnized Mälkki’s performances of Russian scores by Tchaikovsky and Scriabin with the L.A.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 9, 2021
“It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.”
From Fox News ● Jul. 4, 2020
The law, more particular then than it is now, required a residence of three weeks in a place, before a marriage could be solemnized, and they left for Holland ere the expiration of a fortnight.
From Mildred Arkell, Volume II (of 3) A Novel by Mrs. Henry Wood
The Scottish Episcopal Church opened the door to solemnizing same-sex marriages in 2017, the Church of Scotland last May.
From Washington Post ● Jan. 20, 2023
Despite facing an outstanding arrest warrant for solemnizing Arzoo’s marriage, he continued his practice in his ramshackle office above a wholesale rice market in downtown Karachi.
From Washington Times ● Dec. 28, 2020
“I would really love the opportunity to participate in solemnizing Congress,” Barker said in an interview.
From Washington Post ● May 5, 2016
It is highly adorned with quills of the war-eagle, and never used on any other occasion than that of making and solemnizing peace, when it is passed round to the chiefs.
From History, Manners, and Customs of the North American Indians by Thomas O. (Thomas Osmond) Summers
An event occurred the week before which cast a solemnizing influence on him, and on his after fellow-traveller and brother in the gospel, who was licensed by another Presbytery that same day.
From The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne by Andrew A. Bonar
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.
