venerate

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin venerāt-, the participial stem of veneror (“to worship, revere, adore”).^[2][3][4] Merriam-Webster and Dictionary.com name the past participle venerātus.^[5][6] Etymonline and Barnhart also allow a back-formation from veneration, which is older in English,^[7][8][4] and Barnhart adds a possible link with the earlier adjective venerate, reverent, recorded in 1592.^[8][2] The Latin verb is a derivative of venus (“love, desire; beauty”), the word that is also the name Venus,^{[7][9][6][10]} from Proto-Indo-European *wen- (“to desire, strive for”).^[7][9][8] Barnhart compares the Sanskrit word for "loves, attains" and Gothic 𐍅𐌴𐌽𐍃 (wēns, “hope, expectation”).^[8] The same Latin verb gave Italian venerare, Spanish venerar, Portuguese venerar and French vénérer.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

To regard with respect and reverence, as something exalted or sacred: 1623, in Cockeram's English Dictionarie.^[2][8] Merriam-Webster gives about 1623,^[5] Etymonline the 1620s^[7] and Dictionary.com 1615–25.^[6] The adjective venerate, with the sense of venerant, is recorded in 1592, in Dallington's translation of Colonna's Hypnerotomachia.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The Latin verb meant seeking a deity's favour before it meant worship and reverence,^[8][6] and behind it stands a word for love and desire:^[6][10] Merriam-Webster's Book of Word Histories sets it beside venustās (“charm”) and the source of venom, venēnum, first apparently a love potion.^[10] By the time English took the verb, the noun veneration had been in use since the 15th century.^[7][8][2] The verb was never limited to religion: Johnson (1755) glossed it "to reverence; to treat with veneration; to regard with awe", with quotations from Herbert and Dryden about a shrine and a sacred shade, with one from Clarissa about a clergyman and the gospel.^[11] A narrower sense, honouring something by an act of reverence, appears in 1806 in Lingard's work on the Anglo-Saxon Church,^[2] though the Shorter Oxford, which calls it rare, dates it to the mid 19th century.^[3] Merriam-Webster notes that respect is especially likely to be called veneration when the person or thing is old as well as noble.^[5]

Timeline

• 1623 – to regard with deep respect and reverence.^[2][8]
• 1806 – to honour by a distinct act of reverence.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To hold in deep respect; to revere, especially for holiness, wisdom or age: The villagers venerated the old healer.^[12][5][3]
2. To honour with an act of reverence, as a relic or shrine.^[2][3][12]

Word family

• venerator

Related words

• venerable
• veneration
• Venus
• venereal
• venom
• win

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d 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. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c d e Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
9. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
10. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster's Book of Word Histories, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
11. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins