adore

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English aouren, also auren, and later adouren,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Old French aorer, also aourer and aurer, and later adourer and adorer,^[5][6][3][7] partly also borrowed directly from Latin adōrō (“to plead with, pray to, worship”) according to the OED.^[5] The forms with d were refashioned after the Latin.^[4][7] In both languages the two kinds of form competed through the 15th century: in English adouren gradually replaced aouren, and in French the forms with d won, which Barnhart puts partly down to the learned influence of adōrēmus (“let us pray”).^[3] The Anglo-Norman verb is recorded from the early 12th century, meaning to revere, venerate or worship.^[8] The Latin verb meant "to speak to formally, beseech", and in Late Latin "to worship";^[6][3] it is formed from ad- (“to”) and ōrō (“to speak formally, pray”),^[6][9][10] which Skeat relates to ōs (“mouth”) and to oral.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

To worship as a god: about 1300, in a life of Saint Katherine, where heathen gods are said to be nothing that people should aoure.^[5][2] Barnhart finds the form adouren about 1375, in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.^[3]

Semantic evolution

From about 1350 the verb was used both for showing deep reverence and for honouring someone highly, regarding a person with great respect and love.^[5] Etymonline dates the sense "to honor very highly" only to the 1590s.^[6] Johnson (1755) gave first "to worship with external homage" and then a popular sense of high reverence or love.^[12] The weakened sense "to be very fond of" emerged by the 1880s,^[6] and the OED notes that the verb is now often used simply for liking something very much.^[5] Two senses were short-lived: "to adorn" (1596–1637), first in Spenser, by confusion with adorn,^[5] and "to elect a pope by adoration" (1605–1869).^[5] The adjective adorable followed a similar path, from "worthy of divine worship" in the early 17th century to "lovable" in the mid 17th century.^[13]

Timeline

• c. 1300 – to worship as a god.^[5][2]
• c. 1350 – to show reverence; to honour very highly, love deeply.^[5]
• c. 1375 – the form adouren, in Chaucer.^[3]
• c. 1540 – to venerate an object as a sign of worship.^[5]
• 1596 – to adorn (obsolete after 1637).^[5]
• 1605 – to elect a pope by adoration (obsolete after 1869).^[5]
• 1880s – to be very fond of.^[6]

Modern meaning

Verb

1. To love and admire someone deeply: She adored her grandfather.
2. To worship a god or pay divine honours to.
3. (informal) To like very much: I adore summer evenings.
4. (Roman Catholic Church) To offer reverence to the consecrated host.

Word family

• adorer
• adoringly
• unadored

Related words

• adorable
• adoration
• oral
• orator
• adorn

Usage notes

Dictionary.com lists idolize, revere and venerate as synonyms and abhor as the opposite.^[14] Adore and adorn are not related, though the OED records one sense ("to adorn") that came from confusing them.^[5]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
9. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
10. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
11. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House