reverent honor and homage paid to God or a sacred personage, or to any object regarded as sacred.
formal or ceremonious rendering of such honor and homage.
They attended worship this morning.
adoring reverence or regard.
excessive worship of business success.
the object of adoring reverence or regard.
(initial capital letter) a title of honor used in addressing or mentioning certain magistrates and others of high rank or station (usually preceded by Your, His, orHer ).
to render religious reverence and homage, as to a deity.
to attend services of divine worship.
to feel an adoring reverence or regard.
(tr) to show profound religious devotion and respect to; adore or venerate (God or any person or thing considered divine)
(tr) to be devoted to and full of admiration for
(intr) to have or express feelings of profound adoration
(intr) to attend services for worship
obsolete (tr) to honour
religious adoration or devotion
the formal expression of religious adoration; rites, prayers, etc
admiring love or devotion
archaic dignity or standing
What does worship mean? Worship is the honor and reverence given to a god or sacred object, as in The holy men would not allow anyone to interrupt their worship of the gods. Worship can also refer to the formal act or ceremony in which a person gives such reverence, as in The family attended worship yesterday. Worship can be used more generally to refer to passionate adoration or devotion of anything, as in I am sometimes disturbed by the creepy worship of celebrities. As a verb, worship can be used in both the religious sense, as in worshipping nature, or the secular sense, as in worshiping the musician at every concert. In American English, worshiped and worshipping are spelled with only one P, while in British English they are spelled with two P’s (worshipped, worshipping). Self-worship is used to refer to someone who reveres or adores themselves, as in The dozens of flattering self-portraits were just one example of the king’s self-worship. Example: My sister worships her cats and is always buying fancy gifts for them.
First recorded before 900; Middle English noun wors(c)hipe, worthssipe, Old English worthscipe, variant of weorthscipe; Middle English verb derivative of the noun; see origin at worth 1, -ship
To worship is to show a lot of love and adoration for something. Religious believers worship gods, and people can worship other people and things too. Worship is an extreme form of love — it's a type of unquestioning devotion. If you worship God, then you love God so much that you don't question him at all. Going to church is a form of worship — so is prayer. People also use the word worship in other cases. If you love a musician or sports star, you might say, "I worship her!" Or someone might say to you, "Man, you need to wake up and stop worshiping him."
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Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Eight of out 10 of Sumba's population of 685,000 people are Christian, but its older "marapu" belief system, that blends animism and ancestor worship, has deep roots.
From Barron's ● Jul. 21, 2026
He also used AI to do the call to worship, the prayers, and to write new hymns complete with AI-generated music.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 19, 2026
This kind of warrior worship is also incredibly common.
From Slate ● Jul. 10, 2026
They gathered in the evening daily for religious worship.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 10, 2026
"Unlike you, I was not sustained by the love and worship of mortals," he growls.
From "City of the Plague God" by Sarwat Chadda
Mr. Keesee is founder of Frontline Missions International and co-author of “From the Rising of the Sun: A Journey of Worship Around the World.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 27, 2025
Batiste was a surprise winner at last year's ceremony and features in the major categories once again, with his album World Music Radio and song Worship up for the top prizes.
From BBC ● Nov. 10, 2023
People pray during the Praise and Worship service.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 12, 2023
In her most difficult moments, Dorsainvil said she turned to “See a Victory” by the North Carolina-based Elevation Worship music collective.
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 13, 2023
“Your Worship shines so brightly, you will blind every man who dares to look upon you,” said Reznak.
From "A Dance with Dragons" by George R. R. Martin
Within a legal profession that venerates judges and worships the Supreme Court, this is borderline heresy.
From Slate ● Jul. 20, 2026
Where the MT1 puts small on a pedestal, the Slate Truck worships simple.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 20, 2026
Filipino woman worships green statue for 4 years, finds out it is animated character Shrek.
From MarketWatch ● Jan. 12, 2026
She still drives her son insane with the way she worships the professor, but she’s not as infuriatingly unreasonable as Chekhov permits her to be.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 19, 2025
Or maybe it’s because Kim worships Brooke Vega.
From "If I Stay" by Gayle Forman
The Torrance, California, man studied at the prestigious California Institute of Technology, and worshipped at the Pasadena United Reformed Church in the Los Angeles area.
From BBC ● May 5, 2026
"If someone chants the name of Mother Bonbibi, she will save his life from tigers, snakes, and crocodiles," said villager Ashutosh Mandal, 63, referring to a deity whose idol is worshipped at temples.
From Barron's ● Apr. 28, 2026
They worshipped in a two-bedroom apartment while the group raised money to build a more permanent mosque—a spiritual home that would deepen their roots in their hometown.
From Slate ● Apr. 19, 2026
Despite the abundance of material, it remains difficult to determine exactly which deities were worshipped.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 5, 2026
In doing so, they copied the lives of the gods and goddesses they worshipped.
From "Sterling Biographies®: Cleopatra: Egypt's Last and Greatest Queen" by Susan Blackaby
The same way that McIlroy worshiped Woods before playing alongside him, a new generation of players reached the highest level of the game by wanting to be McIlroy.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 9, 2026
Shortly after their arrival, they attended a service at a large church in Naperville, marking the first time they had worshiped openly as Christians.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 4, 2026
Remember Belichick, still worshiped as a gridiron Obi-Wan, pooh-poohing Maye on draft night less than two years ago, mocking comparisons to Josh Allen and fretting that Maye hadn’t played very much in college?
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 29, 2025
“I absolutely worshiped The Beatles,” he told Rolling Stone in 2002.
From Salon ● Jul. 26, 2025
These and their like were what the pre-Greek world worshiped.
From "Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes" by Edith Hamilton
Architecture is the most optimistic of art forms, because to create spaces for living and working, for worshiping and governing, is by its nature a positive act.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 27, 2026
Society is depicted as "worshiping only power and money, despising art, sensitivity, tenderness, where people ...don't talk anymore."
From Barron's ● Apr. 3, 2026
But Rigney himself is focused on much more than worshiping Jesus and loving one another.
From Slate ● Jan. 30, 2026
“He is now rejoicing and worshiping the Lord as he loved to do,” Lopez wrote.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 14, 2024
It hit him: The roaches weren’t just honoring Boots—they were worshiping her!
From "Gregor the Overlander" by Suzanne Collins
Kingsley Femi Fanwo, Kogi State's information commissioner, blamed Sunday's church raid on bandits, and urged isolated places of worship to "reconsider worshipping in crime prone areas for now until the situation gets better".
From Barron's ● Nov. 30, 2025
He believes in the power of film and the strength we get from the communal aspect of worshipping at the movie house.
From Salon ● May 24, 2025
He’s incapable of worshipping a god because he’s only capable of worshipping himself.
From Salon ● Mar. 6, 2024
There are reckoned to be more than 250 black-majority churches in south London with thousands of people worshipping every Sunday.
From BBC ● Feb. 6, 2024
I’m a little conflicted, since I’m against the idea of everybody worshipping the so-called cool crowd.
From "Linked" by Gordon Korman
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.
