Definitions

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

  • verb British Alternative spelling of canonize.

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

  • verb treat as a sacred person
  • verb declare (a dead person) to be a saint

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word canonise.

Examples

  • Well, the Vatican should shut up; it's quick enough to condemn Jews for defensive action but I seem to recall was utterly silent during one of the worst genocides of the Twentieth Century (and is now actively trying to 'canonise' the one responsible for that so that he could achieve greater Vatican control of its German churches) hadrian

    On Thursday, the Legg report will be published along with... 2009

  • This is emphatically not a religion of any single book, notwithstanding recent attempts to canonise works such as the Bhagavad Gita.

    The Hindus: An Alternative History by Wendy Doniger – review Priyamvada Gopal 2010

  • When it comes to the prematurely departed the temptation to canonise is even stronger.

    Dear Mariella: I live with a widower who still keeps his first wife's clothes in his wardrobe. I just feel like a second choice 2012

  • After their death attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonise them, to hallow their names while at the same time robbing the revolutionary theory of its substance, blunting its revolutionary edge and vulgarising it.

    Matthew Yglesias » King and Nonviolence 2009

  • Declining the suggestion of setting the story during the Clone Wars perhaps aware that the next movie would likely de-canonise anything major they chose to do, they went back four millennia into the distant past, to the time of the Sith and the Jedi, to the time covered in the popular Tales of the Jedi comic mini-series, and created a new story there.

    Archive 2009-08-01 Adam Whitehead 2009

  • Declining the suggestion of setting the story during the Clone Wars perhaps aware that the next movie would likely de-canonise anything major they chose to do, they went back four millennia into the distant past, to the time of the Sith and the Jedi, to the time covered in the popular Tales of the Jedi comic mini-series, and created a new story there.

    Wertzone Classics: Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic Adam Whitehead 2009

  • They have fetched Trajanus 'soul out of hell, and canonise for saints whom they list.

    Anatomy of Melancholy 2007

  • It can take a person and canonise them, demonise them, or eulogise them.

    Archive 2006-04-01 Greg Tannahill 2006

  • To invite, as does the Windsor document, those provinces to reconsider is not to say that there are no issues to be resolved, no prejudice to be repented of (because there unquestionably is much of this); it is not to reject the idea of an 'inclusive' Church or to canonise an unintelligent reading of the Bible.

    Archbishop's Presidential Address 2005

  • To invite, as does the Windsor document, those provinces to reconsider is not to say that there are no issues to be resolved, no prejudice to be repented of (because there unquestionably is much of this); it is not to reject the idea of an 'inclusive' Church or to canonise an unintelligent reading of the Bible.

    Archbishop's Presidential Address 13th Meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council, Nottingham 18-28 June 2005 2005

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.