revere

Etymology

It is partly borrowed from Middle French reverer (“to feel deep respect for, to treat with reverence”), now révérer, and partly borrowed from Latin revereor (“to stand in awe of, to venerate”).^{[2][3][4][5][6]} Etymonline and the American Heritage Dictionary take it through French,^[7][8] while Merriam-Webster and Dictionary.com derive it from Latin alone.^[9][10] The Latin verb is made of re-, here probably intensive, and vereor (“to fear, stand in awe of, respect”),^{[7][11][4][9]} from Proto-Indo-European *wer- (“to perceive, watch out for”).^[7][8][6] Klein and Barnhart relate it to wary and ware,^[6][12] and Ayto calls it a possible distant relative of aware and beware.^[11] Barnhart suggests that the English verb may partly be a back-formation from reverence, reinforced by the French verb;^[12] Etymonline notes that reverence was the earlier verb,^[7] and Weekley that the noun reverence and the adjectives reverend and reverent are much older than revere.^[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

To feel deep respect for, to hold in the highest esteem: 1558, in W. Whittingham's verses in Sternhold's Psalmes of Dauid.^[2] Merriam-Webster's Unabridged gives the same year,^[9] but other dictionaries date the word later: 1615 in the Collegiate,^[14] 1655–65 in Dictionary.com,^[10] the 1660s in Etymonline^[7] and 1661, in Blount's Glossographia, in Barnhart.^[12][15]

Semantic evolution

The verb arrived long after the related words of the family: the noun reverence is recorded from about 1280 and reverent from about 1380, in Chaucer's translation of Boethius.^[12][13] The sense has changed little since the 16th century.^[2] Johnson (1755) defined it as "to reverence; to honour; to venerate; to regard with awe", with a quotation from Addison on Lucius Verus and Marcus Aurelius.^[16] An intransitive use, to show reverence, appears in 1797 in Ann Radcliffe's The Italian and is now rare,^[2][3] and a sense "to hesitate to do something out of respect" is recorded only once, in 1689.^[2] Merriam-Webster's Unabridged stresses the affection in the word: to show love and honour to someone, to practise an affectionate deference.^[9]

Timeline

• 1558 – to feel deep respect or admiration for, to venerate.^[2][9]
• 1689 – to hesitate to do something out of respect (obsolete, recorded once).^[2]
• 1797 – intransitive, to show reverence (now rare).^[2][3]

Meanings

Verb

1. To regard with deep respect and admiration, often mixed with awe or affection; to venerate: The villagers revered the old healer.^[17][9][2]
2. (rare) To show reverence.^[2][3]

Word family

• reverable
• reverer

Related words

• reverence
• reverend
• reverent
• wary
• ware
• aware
• beware
• verecund

Usage notes

Merriam-Webster's Unabridged groups revere with reverence, venerate, worship and adore, and notes that one usually reveres persons, with tenderness and deference.^[9] With a capital, Revere names silverware made by, or in the style of, the American silversmith Paul Revere, from 1901.^[2][3] A rare noun revere, an alteration of revers, a lapel, is recorded from 1899.^[9][14]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
10. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
11. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
12. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
13. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
14. ^ a b Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
15. ^ Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
16. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
17. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins