Definitions

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

  • intransitive verb To deliver a sermon to (someone).
  • intransitive verb To deliver or speak as though delivering a sermon.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To preach; discourse; harangue; use a dogmatic or didactic style in speaking or writing.
  • To lecture; lay down the law.
  • To make sermons; compose or write a sermon.
  • To preach a sermon to; discourse to in a formal way; persuade, affect, or influence by or as by a sermon.
  • Also spelled sermonise.

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

  • transitive verb rare To preach or discourse to; to affect or influence by means of a sermon or of sermons.
  • intransitive verb To compose or write a sermon or sermons; to preach.
  • intransitive verb rare To inculcate rigid rules.

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

  • verb To speak in the manner of a sermon.
  • verb To propagate one's morality with speech.

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

  • verb speak as if delivering a sermon; express moral judgements

Etymologies

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Examples

  • I am a Catholic, and albeit in my adulthood I've come to realize that my religion is not as all-embracing, compassionate, and christian as we sermonize from the pulpit, I can identify with the solace gained from quiet moments of prayer in an empty church.

    Ted Kennedy called a man of quiet faith 2009

  • The Beatles (You know, the group that made Paul McCartney a multi-millionaire, so he can now sermonize about the destruction of coercive monopolies is a threat to “up and coming bands”), had, through most of their career, at most 8 tracks to work with, and it was analog tape.

    Free and legal MP3s 2009

  • Around 10 p.m. on a recent evening, the rabbi at Denver's Temple Emanuel was asked if he would ever sermonize about Tebow.

    Tim Tebow: Denver's New Favorite Mensch Ben Cohen 2011

  • I can sermonize about immigration policy until I am blue in the face, but nothing can convey how broken our system is like the story of a non-Spanish-speaking, undocumented teenager that was deported to a Spanish-speaking country.

    Pablo Andreu: DREAM Lives on in Lower East Side Pablo Andreu 2011

  • I can sermonize about immigration policy until I am blue in the face, but nothing can convey how broken our system is like the story of a non-Spanish-speaking, undocumented teenager that was deported to a Spanish-speaking country.

    Pablo Andreu: DREAM Lives on in Lower East Side Pablo Andreu 2011

  • The last thing I'd ever do is sermonize that "you should have gone home first," which is why this story makes me furious as well as intensely sympathetic.

    Bad news from the Crüxshadows greygirlbeast 2010

  • When my father was growing up in the hills of southern Missouri, he would ride his bike into town with his buddies, in the smoky days of Indian Summers, to watch the preachers who crawled in from the backwoods to stand on their rickety boxes and sermonize to the patrons of the town square.

    Go to Jesus Rachel Lora Simmons 2010

  • About 160 people sat elbow to elbow on folding chairs to hear Haggard sermonize about sin, love and forgiveness.

    Ted Haggard's New Church, St. James, Draws 160 In Colorado Springs 2010

  • In the months before the Santa Fe talks, Maxwell had crisscrossed the Southwest to sermonize about the threat of an Asiatic invasion.

    Colossus Michael Hiltzik 2010

  • For President Obama and Mayor Bloomberg and their allies like to sermonize about a proposition not in dispute — the legal right of the imam to build on the property he's bought — while imputing the lowest of motives to anyone who disagrees with them.

    'Bridge Building' and the WTC Mosque 2010

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