Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The reverent love and devotion accorded a deity, an idol, or a sacred object.
  • noun The ceremonies, prayers, or other religious forms by which this love is expressed.
  • noun Ardent admiration or love; adoration.
  • noun Chiefly British Used as a form of address for magistrates, mayors, and certain other dignitaries.
  • intransitive verb To honor and love as a deity.
  • intransitive verb To regard with ardent or adoring esteem or devotion. synonym: revere.
  • intransitive verb To participate in religious rites of worship.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Honor; dignity; distinction; worthiness; honorable character or condition; good name; credit.
  • noun The outward recognition of merit; reverence; respect; deference.
  • noun Specifically, the reverence and homage which is or ought to be paid to God or a deity; adoration, sacrifice, praise, prayer, thanksgiving, or other devotional acts performed in honor of the Supreme Being or a god, and as part of religion.
  • noun Fervent esteem, admiration, or devotion; adoration.
  • noun Praise; glorification; celebration.
  • noun A title of honor used in addressing certain magistrates and others of rank or station. Abbreviated wp.
  • noun A church or chapel; a place devoted to the worship of God.
  • To honor; respect; regard with reverence, respect, or deference.
  • To show respect to; treat with consideration or honor; pay one's respects to.
  • Specifically, to adore; pay divine honors to; show reverence to, with supreme respect and veneration; perform religious service to.
  • To love or admire inordinately; devote one's self to; act toward or treat as if divine; idolize: as, to worship wealth or power.
  • Synonyms Adore, Worship, Reverence, etc. See adore.
  • To perform acts of adoration; perform religious service.
  • To love or admire a person inordinately.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb obsolescent To respect; to honor; to treat with civil reverence.
  • transitive verb To pay divine honors to; to reverence with supreme respect and veneration; to perform religious exercises in honor of; to adore; to venerate.
  • transitive verb To honor with extravagant love and extreme submission, as a lover; to adore; to idolize.
  • noun obsolete Excellence of character; dignity; worth; worthiness.
  • noun obsolete Honor; respect; civil deference.
  • noun Hence, a title of honor, used in addresses to certain magistrates and others of rank or station.
  • noun The act of paying divine honors to the Supreme Being; religious reverence and homage; adoration, or acts of reverence, paid to God, or a being viewed as God.
  • noun Obsequious or submissive respect; extravagant admiration; adoration.
  • noun An object of worship.
  • noun etc. See under Devil, Fire, Hero, etc.
  • intransitive verb To perform acts of homage or adoration; esp., to perform religious service.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun obsolete The condition of being worthy; honour, distinction.
  • noun The devotion accorded to a deity or to a sacred object
  • noun The religious ceremonies that express this devotion
  • noun by extension The ardent love of a person
  • verb To honor and adore, especially as a deity.
  • verb To participate in religious ceremonies.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb show devotion to (a deity)
  • noun a feeling of profound love and admiration
  • verb attend religious services
  • noun the activity of worshipping
  • verb love unquestioningly and uncritically or to excess; venerate as an idol

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English worshipe, worthiness, honor, from Old English weorthscipe : weorth, worth; see worth + -scipe, -ship.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Old English weorþscipe, corresponding to worth +‎ -ship.

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Examples

  • He probably foresaw, as indeed time has shown, that ancestral worship would prove to be an insuperable obstacle to many inquirers, if they were called upon to discard it once and for all; at the same time, he must have known that an invocation to spirits, coupled with the hope of obtaining some benefit therefrom, is _worship_ pure and simple, and cannot be explained away as an unmeaning ceremony.

    China and the Manchus Herbert Allen Giles 1890

  • Church, of course; but to-day, this glowing, glorious August day, it was something infinitely above and beyond all this; it was the visible temple of the invisible God, _their_ Saviour, and they were going up to worship -- aye, really and truly to _worship_.

    The Chautauqua Girls At Home 1841-1930 Pansy 1885

  • So it would seem that _religio_ is already beginning to pass into the sense in which we still use it -- _i. e._, _the feeling which suggests worship, and the forms under which we perform that worship_.

    The Religious Experience of the Roman People From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus W. Warde Fowler 1884

  • He knew that, next to the worship of God, the true _worship_ of a fellow-creature, in the old meaning of the word, is the most potent thing for deliverance.

    There & Back George MacDonald 1864

  • Massachusetts Bay assumed not merely the liberty of worship for themselves, but _the liberty of prohibiting any other form of worship, and of proscribing and banishing all who would not join in their worship_; that is, doing in Massachusetts what they complained so loudly of the King and Laud doing in England.

    The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2. From 1620-1816 Egerton Ryerson 1842

  • … On the other hand, it must be obvious, that when Circe’s unfortunate animals are induced to worship chastity, all they see and _worship_ therein, is their opposite — oh! and with what tragic groaning and fervour, may well be imagined — that same painful and thoroughly superfluous opposition which, towards the end of his life, Richard Wagner undoubtedly wished to set to music and to put on the stage, _And to what purpose?

    The Case Of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected Aphorisms. Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche 1872

  • IV. xiv.86 (233,7) the worship of the whole world] The _worship_, is the

    Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies Samuel Johnson 1746

  • "Darwin worship" is a world wide phenomenon within academia.

    Channeling Religious Impulses 2010

  • That the idea the term worship stands for is not in the understanding of children, and a character stamped on the mind in its first original, I think will be easily granted, by any one that considers how few there be amongst grown men who have a clear and distinct notion of it.

    An Essay Concerning Human Understanding 2007

  • The English word worship was originally pronounced “worthship,” and it had to do with valuing and evaluating God and the things He created, including you, the worshipper.

    God is Not a Christian, Nor a Jew, Muslim, Hindu … Carlton Pearson 2010

Comments

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  • Are there places where worship and warship are pronounced the same?

    August 3, 2011

  • Texas, I think.

    August 3, 2011

  • The Pentagon chapel?

    August 3, 2011