reverential

comparative more reverential · superlative most reverential

1. Showing or characterized by reverence; respectful.

   The reverential tone intensified as this section progressed. When each spectator had purportedly become her mother, she was invited to share her mother's wisdom, prefaced by the words "I always said."

   2012, Jill Dolan, The Feminist Spectator as Critic, University of Michigan Press, →ISBN, page 94

   1 more example

   The supposed religious tone must be banished, so far as it is applied to the book itself or to the words printed in it; but there is a reverential tone, properly applicable to the meaning conveyed by the words, which should be cultivated.

   1867, Edward William Cox, The Arts of Writing, Reading and Speaking, page 155

   Synonyms: reverent · Antonyms: irreverential

plural reverentials

1. Someone or something that is reverential.

   While reverentials wait / The triumph of His cosmic plan, / The Christ reclaims his millions in this martyrdom of man.

   1921, John J. Gaynor, The Wine of Witchery, New York, N.Y.: James T[erry] White & Co., →OCLC, page 72

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   But that eccleſiaſtical authority can exiſt (perhaps as far as it ought) without the exerciſe of civil power, we have a proof in this ſect; the degrees of whoſe prieſthood (which are as numerous I believe as in any prieſthood, conſiſting of provincial biſhops, metropolitans (or what amounts to the meaning), deacons, preſbyters, and every order of reverentials) poſſeſs, it ſeems, each one within the circle of their connection, its proper influence, fully and undiſputedly.

   1791, [Robert Sadler], “Penson to His Friend Bountly”, in Wanley Penson; or, The Melancholy Man: A Miscellaneous History. […], volume I, London: […] C[atharine] and G[eorge] Kearsley, […], →OCLC, page 352

   The verb is not thereby made reflective, but preserves the same signification as if not reverential. The intransitive reverentials are said to be formed from their compulsive form, and the active from their applicative.

   1845, Albert Gallatin, “Mexican Language”, in Transactions of the American Ethnological Society, volume I, New York, N.Y.: Bartlett & Welford; London: Wiley & Putnam, →OCLC, article I (Notes on the Semi-civilized Nations of Mexico, Yucatan, and Central America), appendix I (Grammatical Notes, Etc.), page 233