VENERATION

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does veneration mean? 

• VENERATION (noun)
  The noun VENERATION has 2 senses:

1. a feeling of profound respect for someone or something

2. religious zeal; the willingness to serve God

  Familiarity information: VENERATION used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• VENERATION (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A feeling of profound respect for someone or something

Classified under:

Nouns denoting feelings and emotions

Synonyms:

awe; fear; reverence; veneration

Context example:

his respect for the law bordered on veneration

Hypernyms ("veneration" is a kind of...):

emotion (any strong feeling)

Derivation:

venerate (regard with feelings of respect and reverence; consider hallowed or exalted or be in awe of)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Religious zeal; the willingness to serve God

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

cultism; devotion; veneration

Hypernyms ("veneration" is a kind of...):

worship (the activity of worshipping)

 Context examples 

I suppose I have a considerable organ of veneration, for I retain yet the sense of admiring awe with which my eyes traced her steps.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

“I hold it—I have always held it—in veneration.”

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

I have too great a veneration for crowned heads, to dwell any longer on so nice a subject.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

But it is a pleasure to me to admire him at a distance—and to think of his infinite superiority to all the rest of the world, with the gratitude, wonder, and veneration, which are so proper, in me especially.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

A fortunate chance had recommended him to Lady Catherine de Bourgh when the living of Hunsford was vacant; and the respect which he felt for her high rank, and his veneration for her as his patroness, mingling with a very good opinion of himself, of his authority as a clergyman, and his right as a rector, made him altogether a mixture of pride and obsequiousness, self-importance and humility.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

Therefore I gave him one of my three bright shillings, which he received with much humility and veneration, and spun up with his thumb, directly afterwards, to try the goodness of.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

I admired the strength, comeliness, and speed of the inhabitants; and such a constellation of virtues, in such amiable persons, produced in me the highest veneration.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

I felt veneration for St. John—veneration so strong that its impetus thrust me at once to the point I had so long shunned.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

This veneration Mr. Dick extended to the Doctor, whom he thought the most subtle and accomplished philosopher of any age.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

A strange effect of narrow principles and views! that a prince possessed of every quality which procures veneration, love, and esteem; of strong parts, great wisdom, and profound learning, endowed with admirable talents, and almost adored by his subjects, should, from a nice, unnecessary scruple, whereof in Europe we can have no conception, let slip an opportunity put into his hands that would have made him absolute master of the lives, the liberties, and the fortunes of his people!

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)