Definitions

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

  • adjective Given to or expressive of worship; reverent or adoring.
  • adjective Chiefly British Used as a respectful form of address.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Claiming respect; worthy of honor on account of character, dignity, etc.; honorable.
  • Specifically, a respectful epithet of address, especially to magistrates and corporate bodies; also, in freemasonry, specifying a certain official rank or dignity.

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

  • adjective Entitled to worship, reverence, or high respect; claiming respect; worthy of honor; -- often used as a term of respect, sometimes ironically.

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

  • adjective Showing reverence; tending to worship.

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

  • adjective showing great reverence for god
  • adjective showing adoration

Etymologies

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Examples

  • The Republicans say they are the "party of Lincoln" (although they probably drive Bimmers), or they invoke Ronald Reagan in worshipful tones, as if just saying the name will somehow cast a spell of happy faces, white bread and "Leave It to Beaver" marathons.

    March 2006 2006

  • I have with me, as one of the things not to be forgotten, the memory of a cheap foreign hotel where, two or three years back, a little Cockney clerk was making holiday in worshipful attendance on the girl he was engaged to.

    Marriage as a Trade 1909

  • They have seen, rather, the person-hood of their own parents wilt in the serfdom of materialism: for what else can we call the worshipful obedience to the commands of the advertisement?

    orrologion 2009

  • These others of whom we have spoken, the yeoman who never aspired beyond the yeoman's position, are as ancient and as "worshipful" -- to use an old and disused term -- as they.

    The Toilers of the Field Richard Jefferies 1867

  • It’s just a series of assertions that purport to follow from each other, but really don’t, all couched in worshipful language as if that somehow made the integrity of the piece unassailable.

    Augustine vs. Pelagius - Part One: Man, the Fall, and Original Sin | Heretical Ideas Magazine 2009

  • Now the Washington Post, that great barometer of the capital's consensus, has taken on what can only be described as a worshipful attitude toward the lobbyist set.

    Thomas Frank: Obama and the K Street Set 2009

  • History has reserved that kind of worshipful treatment only to Adolf Hitler during the late 1930s as he was credited by Germans for undoing Versailles and restoring respect for Germany internationally.

    Slaughter “A Product of Circumstance” « Antiwar.com Blog 2009

  • Under the circumstances, Al can't be much blamed for feeling kind of worshipful as he walked out onto the water.

    He Don't Know Him 2010

  • This is why pegging Obama to "worshipful" athiests i.e. democrats I suppose? sheesh is silly.

    What can you say about those atheists who believe in God? Ann Althouse 2008

  • And marketing books to teens that promote this kind of worshipful love seems kind of dangerous to me.

    Archive 2008-12-01 Stephanie 2008

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