Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Conferring or showing respect or honor.
- n. A title, phrase, or grammatical form conveying respect, used especially when addressing a social superior.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Conferring honor; importing respect or deference.
- n. A word or syllable used as a mere honorific term: as, for example, in the languages of China and Japan, kwei, honorable, kao, eminent, lao, venerable, go, imperial, o, great or august, used for the second and third personal pronouns when speaking to or of another: as, kwei kwoh, your (honorable) country; go sei mei, your (imperial) name, etc.
Wiktionary
- n. A title. (i.e., Mister, Misses, Doctor, Professor)
- n. A term of respect; respectful language.
- adj. Showing or conferring honour and respect.
- adj. Based on or valuing honor
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Conferring honor; tending to honor.
WordNet 3.0
- n. an expression of respect
- adj. conferring or showing honor or respect
Etymologies
- Latin honōrificus : honor, honōr-, honor + -ficus, -fic. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“I'm all for hanging Bush by his toenails (figuratively of course) but for a member of Congress to explicitly elide the honorific is a breach of decorum.”
“The installation of so-called honorific seats, places reserved especially for the highest elite, were a common feature in theaters.”
“Quoting sources in North Korea, the exile radio station said North Koreans now call leader Kim Jong-il simply by his name without using any honorific, which is unprecedented in the North.”
“That the word astronaut seems to be viewed by some as some kind of honorific, expressing not just existence at altitude, but also accomplishment at altitude (as recognized by some, but perhaps not others), makes that word conditional in a way that actually cheapens it.”
“She didn't earn but squandered the honor of being an "honorific" Senator.”
Clinton Spokesperson Rules Out Pursuit Of Obama's Pledged Delegates
“Rider Haggard, the full "honorific"/name for the title character.”
“A senior interrogator at Balad, he was considered an intellectual, though his honorific was an exaggeration: He had earned two master’s degrees, one in international relations and another in management.”
“It is usually accomplished by means of the titles, "honorific" particles, and honorific verbs and nouns.”
“Perusing the CP item, one can't help but have the overall sense that while the "honorific" is bestowed on Harper, there's enough offered as opinion to fairly say it's a begrudging choice.”
“These and these alone are truly entitled to the honorific”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘honorific’.
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Gesundheit
Words that sound like sneezes
zucchini, zoology, wysiwyg, woodchuck, withhold, wichita, vacuum, twelfth, syzygy, synchronous, swatch, supersede and 120 more...
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Words that start with a silent H
honor, honest, heir, herb, hors d'oeuvre, hour, homage, hola, heiress, hombre, honorific, honorable and 1 more...
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slumry's Words
cattywampus, ingratiate, lackadaisical, exactitude, exfoliate, fulminate, circumnavigation, circuitous, debride, sidle, sequester, chicory and 1002 more...
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princeton review
jubilance, obtrusive, maladjusted, prodigious, incredulous, stolidity, inured, stoicism, sidereal, boisterous, etiolated, circumscribed and 90 more...
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A Mini-Dictionary of Unfamiliar Words
This mini-dictionary was inspired by the novel and imaginative use of language in the following publications:
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown; The Dice Man by Luke Rhinehart; Lullaby by...abase, anomie, antediluvium, aphorism, apropos, armoire, ascetic, atrium, austere, balustrade, bordello, catechism and 107 more...
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Mélange
doggerel, odsbodkins, platitudinous, ennui, strappleberry, stygian, inchoate, incipient, deleterious, gnarled, troglodyte, interlocutor and 96 more...
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justin's Words
braii, boerewors, lekker, viva, pap, lipodystrophy, lacticacidosis, sharp, chakalaka, defaulter, eish, oof and 256 more...
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sionnach's Words
contumely, fomite, holmgang, poltroon, eleemosynary, obsidian, nugatory, grindcore, felch, recrudescent, pyx, parenteral and 3271 more...
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Names
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Adjectival Arcana
A roster of adjectives that infrequently surface in typical conversation and writing. Many are dredged from scientific or other technical jargon or sieved from examples of disused archaic forms.
unitegmic, acaulescent, reticuloendothelial, ingressive, uniate, acanthopterygian, ossific, epiphysial, perivisceral, acœlomatous, cestoid, acælomate and 7756 more...
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EricMinton's Favorite Words
This list includes some of my favorite words, graded by aroma, texture and mouthfeel.
comprise, elaborate, crystalline, transient, vitality, radiance, chromatic, smolder, coruscate, coarsen, artisan, plumage and 64 more...
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Chicanery
honorific, cellar, chicanery, font, tautology, antistrophe, profligate, cringing, spittle, plutocrat, busking, fallacy and 8 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for honorific.
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