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holy being or place; the disposition to revere; veneration. If thou be poor, farewell thy reverence. Chaucer. Reverence, which is the synthesis of love and fear. Coleridge. When discords, and quarrels, and factions, are carried openly and audaciously, it is a sign the reverence of government islost. Bacon.…

One who regards with reverence. "Reverencers of crowned heads." Swift.

To treat irreverently or with disrespect. [Obs.] Sir T. More.

The state or quality of being irreverent; want of proper reverence; disregard of the authority and character of a superior.

A reverent respect for one's self. Tennyson.

Absence or lack of reverence; irreverence. [Obs.] Wyclif.

elevated feeling of pleasure, as something which calls out approbation, esteem, love, or reverence; to estimate or prize highly; as, to admire a person of high moral worth, to admire a landscape. Admired as heroes and as gods obeyed. Pope.

To worship with profound reverence; to pay divine honors to; to honor as deity or as divine. Bishops and priests, . . . bearing the host, which he [James adored. Smollett.

arts for a man to commence atheist, and to cast off all belief of providence, all awe and reverence for religion South.

Of a quality inspiring mingled admiration and reverence; having an aspect of solemn dignity or grandeur; sublime; majestic; having exalted birth, character, state, or authority. "Forms august." Pope. "August in visage." Dryden. "To shed that august blood." Macaulay. So beautiful and so august a spectacle. Burke. To min…

surround the figure and represent the glory of Christ, saints, and others held in special reverence.

fined sense of the dreadful and the sublime; reverential fear, or solemn wonder; profound reverence. There is an awe in mortals' joy, A deep mysterious fear. Keble. To tame the pride of that power which held the Continent in awe. Macaulay. The solitude of the desert, or the loftiness of the mountain, may fill the mind…

Inspiring awe; filling with profound reverence, or with fear and admiration; fitted to inspire reverential fear; profoundly impressive. Heaven's awful Monarch. Milton.

The quality of striking with awe, or with reverence; dreadfulness; solemnity; as, the awfulness of this sacred place. The awfulness of grandeur. Johnson.

Wanting reverence; void of respectful fear. "Awless insolence." Dryden.

a public process and decree, that a deceased person is one of "the blessed" and is to be reverenced as such, though not canonized.

To speak of, or address, with impious irreverence; to revile impiously (anything sacred); as, to blaspheme the Holy Spirit. So Dagon shall be magnified, and God, Besides whom is no god, compared with idols, Disglorified, blasphemed, and had in scorn. Milton. How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and aven…

, or pertaining to, spiritual happiness, or heavenly felicity; as, the blessed in heaven. Reverenced like a blessed saint. Shak. Cast out from God and blessed vision. Milton.

To bend the head, knee, or body, in token of reverence or submission; -- often with down. O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the Lord our maker. Ps. xcv. 6.

To bend the body, as in reverence, pain, labor, etc.; to stoop; to crouch. [Obs.] An aged squire That seemed to couch under his shield three-square. Spenser.