sermonize

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English

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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From sermon +‎ -ize.

Verb

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sermonize (third-person singular simple present sermonizes, present participle sermonizing, simple past and past participle sermonized)

  1. (intransitive) To speak in the manner of a sermon; to preach; to propagate one's morality or opinions with speech.
    • 1636, Henry Burton, For God, and the King[1], Amsterdam: J.F. Stam, page 150:
      And doe not our Prelates thus, when [] they disgrace and traduce Preaching, calling it in scorne, Sermonizing?
    • 1776, Elizabeth Griffith, The Story of Lady Juliana Harley[2], London: T. Cadell, Volume 1, Letter 1, p. 2:
      Don’t be alarmed, I am not going to sermonize—but what is almost as dull, to narrate.
    • 1872, George Eliot, chapter 45, in Middlemarch[3]:
      [] I am perhaps talking rather superfluously; but a man likes to assume superiority over himself, by holding up his bad example and sermonizing on it.”
    • 1949, Sinclair Lewis, chapter 13, in The God-Seeker[4], New York: Popular Library, page 69:
      [] she would distrust him if she saw him again before he had achieved all his promises; had journeyed clear out to the Mississippi [] and had become fluent in sermonizing in the Dakota language. No, he must see her next in his glory as a practicing missionary.
    • 1983, Cynthia Ozick, The Cannibal Galaxy, New York: Dutton, published 1984, page 12:
      Sometimes Claude would lead Joseph to the Louvre—a magnificence Joseph had never before entered—and point out the darker paintings and sermonize on them; Claude was an aesthete.
  2. (transitive) To preach a sermon to (somebody); to give (somebody) instruction or admonishment on the basis of one's morality or opinions.
    • 1798, Thomas Holcroft, He’s Much to Blame[5], London: G.G. and J. Robinson, act IV, scene 11, pages 68–69:
      He wishes, I suppose, to sermonize me: but I shall not give him an opportunity—
    • 1847, Charlotte Brontë, chapter 17, in Jane Eyre[6]:
      [] we sermonised her on the presumption of attempting to teach such clever blades as we were, when she was herself so ignorant.”
    • 1869, Robert Browning, The Ring and the Book[7], London: Smith, Elder, Volume 4, Book 10, lines 459-461, p. 21:
      Why was the choice o’ the man to niche himself
      Perversely ’neath the tower where Time’s own tongue
      Thus undertakes to sermonize the world?
    • 1914, Arnold Bennett, chapter 6, in The Price of Love[8], London: Methuen, page 126:
      He could talk morals to others in the grand manner, and with positive enjoyment, but to be sermonized himself secretly exasperated him because it constrained him and made him self-conscious.
    • 1953, Saul Bellow, chapter 3, in The Adventures of Augie March, New York: Viking Press, →OCLC, page 28:
      [] maybe she sermonized us both about love because of her sons.
  3. (transitive) To say in the manner of a sermon or lecture.
    • 1896, Abraham Cahan, chapter 7, in Yekl: A Tale of the New York Ghetto[9], New York: Appleton, page 151:
      “Children, children! Woe, how you do sin!” Mrs. Kavarsky sermonized. “Come now, obey an older person []
    • 1917, George Creel (uncredited author) and Douglas Fairbanks, Laugh and Live, New York: Britton, Chapter 17, p. 144,[10]
      Then as one man they jumped to their feet and by reason of prolonged cheering gave national impulse to a thought which has since been sermonized from thousands of pulpits.
    • 1960, Paul Bartlett, chapter 11, in When the Owl Cries[11], New York: Macmillan:
      “I tell you, we’re in for bad times,” de Selva sermonized before a group. “Our haciendas are threatened by renegades []
  4. (intransitive) To inculcate rigid rules.
    • 1748, Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield, Letters to His Son[12], 6th edition, London: J. Dodsley, published 1775, Volume 1, Letter 106, p. 309:
      If you consider my letters in their true light as conveying to you the advice of a Friend, who sincerely wishes you happiness, and desires to promote your pleasures, you will both read and attend them; but, if you consider them in their opposite, and very false light, as the dictates of a morose and sermonizing Father, I am sure they will be not only unattended to, but unread.

Usage notes

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The term sermonize generally carries a negative connotation (implying dreariness, longwindedness, imposing one’s beliefs on others, etc.) that is not shared by such phrases as deliver a sermon, preach a sermon, etc.

Synonyms

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