worship

Formsworships

1. 1
   noununcountable

   The reverent devotion that people offer to a god or to something they hold sacred.

   For many believers, worship is the heart of religious life.

   Carvings on the cliff suggest the sun once received worship there.

   Similarveneration, adoration, devotion, reverence

2. 2
   verbtransitive

   To revere a deity with supreme respect and veneration, or to honor one through religious observance.

   The ancient Greeks worshipped Zeus with festivals and sacrifices.

   Pilgrims travel for weeks to worship the deity enshrined at the temple.

   Similarrevere, venerate, adore, glorify, praise

   Note

   The spelling of the past and participle forms splits by country. American usage prefers worshiped and worshiping, with one p. British usage prefers worshipped and worshipping, with two. Older printing followed neither rule: Shakespeare's Much Ado about Nothing has "God is to bee worſhipt," and Milton writes "worſhip't Stocks and Stones." Choosing one p or two is a matter of regional convention, not of meaning.

3. 3
   noununcountable

   The religious ceremonies and services that express devotion to a deity.

   Sunday worship begins at ten with hymns and a short sermon.

   Worship at the temple includes chanting, incense, and offerings of fruit.

   Similarservice, prayer, liturgy, devotions

4. 4
   verbintransitive

   To participate in religious ceremonies or acts of devotion.

   Hundreds of families worship at the cathedral every Sunday.

   During the pilgrimage, travelers worship beside the river at sunrise.

   Similarpray

   Note

   Here the verb stands alone, with no object. People simply worship, and the sentence usually goes on to say where: at the church down the road, at the cathedral. Add an object and it becomes the transitive verb. Spelling splits by region. American English keeps one p in worshiped and worshiping, and British English doubles it in worshipped and worshipping.

5. 5
   verbtransitive

   To adore someone with excessive, uncritical devotion and complete submission, as a besotted lover does; to idolize.

   Young players worship the team captain and hang on his every word.

   She worshipped her husband for thirty years, blind to every fault.

   Similaridolize, adore, revere, venerate

   Oppositedespise, loathe, hate, detest

   Note

   The religious verb turned on a person, and in poetry the image stays vivid. Thomas Carew's lover worships "with bended knees" and calls himself "her own Idolater." In ordinary prose the figure fades into doting affection. In Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express (1934), "all the household worshipped her" describes a little girl, with no hint of anything sacred.

6. 6
   noununcountable

   Ardent love; intense, devoted adoration of a person.

   His letters were full of worship for the woman he had met only once.

   Her eyes shone with worship whenever he walked into the room.

   Similaradoration, devotion, adulation, idolization

   Oppositeloathing, hatred, contempt

7. 7
   noununcountable

   Voluntary, complete submission or utter deference to another.

   The dictator demanded worship, not mere obedience, from his ministers.

   Her devotion to the guru shaded into worship, complete and unquestioning.

   Similarreverence, adoration

   Oppositecontempt

8. 8
   noununcountable

   A person or thing that receives devotion or adoration.

   For years, the actress was the worship of half the country.

   The garden became the old man's worship after his wife died.

   Similaridol, darling, passion

   Note

   Here the word names the person or thing adored rather than the feeling, and it usually arrives with a possessive. Longfellow, writing shortly before 1883, calls a beautiful figure "at once the artist's worship and despair." The pairing shows the construction well: one possessor, and the object standing as both what he adores and what defeats him. Without a possessive, the reader will tend to hear the feeling instead.

9. 9
   noununcountable

   In Catholic theology, the adoration (latria) owed to God alone, distinguished from the high veneration (hyperdulia) given to Mary and the veneration (dulia) given to the other saints.

   Catholics offer worship to God alone, reserving veneration for the saints.

   The catechism distinguishes worship of God from the honor shown to Mary.

   Similaradoration, latria

   Note

   A distinction Catholic teaching draws with care, because the English word can mislead. In this usage worship is never the right word for what is offered to Mary or the saints. The honor paid to them is veneration, and worship is reserved for God. A writer who says Catholics "worship Mary" has erased the very line that this technical sense exists to keep.

10. 10
    nounBritishuncountable

    A respectful title or form of address for certain officials, especially magistrates and mayors, chiefly in Britain.

    'May it please Your Worship, my client wishes to apologize,' the barrister began.

    His Worship the Mayor of Leeds opened the new library on Saturday.

    Note

    The word's oldest meaning survives in this honorific. Middle English worthschipe, literally 'worth-ship', lies behind the 'worthiness' sense. A speaker addresses one magistrate as Your Worship and a bench of them as Your Worships. Dickens prints it lowercase in Oliver Twist (1837), where Mr. Bumble asks whether 'your worship' spoke to him. Val McDermid's A Place of Execution (1999) capitalizes it in a British courtroom.

11. 11
    verbtransitive

    To touch, caress, or kiss someone in an intensely sensual way.

    His lips worshipped the curve of her neck.

    She pulled him close and let him worship her slowly.

    Similarcaress, fondle

    Note

    This sense belongs to contemporary romance fiction, where it carries the reverence of the religious verb into the bedroom. It typically names the body part being honored and then adds with to name the instrument. Rebecca Yarros's Iron Flame (2023) has "worship my breasts with his mouth," and Sarah Chamberlain's The Slowest Burn (2024) has "worshipping me with his hands and his mouth."

12. 12
    nounslanguncountable

    The practice of drawing influence from another artist's work so heavily that the borrowing seems obvious or unapologetic, or a piece of music that borrows in that way.

    The record's second half slides into pure Sabbath worship, right down to the detuned riffs.

    Reviewers dismissed the single as shameless Prince worship.

    Similarhomage, pastiche

    Note

    Critics' shorthand that almost never stands alone. The admired artist's name goes in front as a modifier: Kate Bush worship, Beach Boys worship, Velvet Underground worship. The tone runs from fond to faintly mocking. Paul Lester in The Guardian (2010) declares "we're all for Beach Boys worship," while a phrase like "unapologetic Jimi Hendrix worship" marks borrowing that is worn openly. It is slang of the review page, not of formal analysis.

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