Etymology

sermon

ser·mon
S1E1R1M3O1N1

Today it means: Religious discourse; a written or spoken address on a religious or moral matter. Full definition →

Middle English sermoun ← Anglo-Norman sermun ← Old French sermon
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

sermon · noun1

  1. Proto-Indo-European · derived from*sermō
  2. Latin · derived fromsermō, sermōnem
  3. Old French · derived fromsermon
  4. Anglo-Norman · derived fromsermun
  5. Middle English · inherited fromsermoun
  6. English todaysermon

From Middle English sermoun, from Anglo-Norman sermun and/or Old French sermon, from Latin sermō, sermōnem, from Proto-Indo-European *sermō, from *ser- (“to bind”) + *-mō. Displaced native Old English wordpredicung, literally word + preaching.

sermon · verb2

  1. Old French · derived fromsermoner
  2. Middle English · inherited fromsermonen
  3. English todaysermon

From Middle English sermonen, from Old French sermoner, from sermon (see above).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.