sermonize

present singular third person sermonizes · participle present sermonizing · participle past sermonized · past sermonized · alternative sermonise

1. intransitiveTo speak in the manner of a sermon; to preach; to propagate one's morality or opinions with speech.

   Don’t be alarmed, I am not going to sermonize—but what is almost as dull, to narrate.

   1776, Elizabeth Griffith, The Story of Lady Juliana Harley, London: T. Cadell, Volume 1, Letter 1, p. 2

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   And doe not our Prelates thus, when […] they disgrace and traduce Preaching, calling it in scorne, Sermonizing?

   1636, Henry Burton, For God, and the King, Amsterdam: J.F. Stam, page 150

   “[…] 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.”

   1872, George Eliot, chapter 45, in Middlemarch

   […] 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.

   1949, Sinclair Lewis, chapter 13, in The God-Seeker, New York: Popular Library, page 69

   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.

   1983, Cynthia Ozick, The Cannibal Galaxy, New York: Dutton, published 1984, page 12

   Synonyms: moralize

2. transitiveTo preach a sermon to (somebody); to give (somebody) instruction or admonishment on the basis of one's morality or opinions.

   […] maybe she sermonized us both about love because of her sons.

   1953 September 18, Saul Bellow, chapter III, in The Adventures of Augie March […], New York, N.Y.: The Viking Press, →OCLC, page 28

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   He wishes, I suppose, to sermonize me: but I shall not give him an opportunity—

   1798, Thomas Holcroft, He’s Much to Blame, London: G.G. and J. Robinson, act IV, scene 11, pages 68–69

   “[…] we sermonised her on the presumption of attempting to teach such clever blades as we were, when she was herself so ignorant.”

   1847, Charlotte Brontë, chapter 17, in Jane Eyre

   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?

   1869, Robert Browning, The Ring and the Book, London: Smith, Elder, Volume 4, Book 10, lines 459-461, p. 21

   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.

   1914, Arnold Bennett, chapter 6, in The Price of Love, London: Methuen, page 126

   Synonyms: lecture, pontificate, preachify

3. transitiveTo say in the manner of a sermon or lecture.

   1917, George Creel (uncredited author) and Douglas Fairbanks, Laugh and Live, New York: Britton, Chapter 17, p. 144, 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.

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   “Children, children! Woe, how you do sin!” Mrs. Kavarsky sermonized. “Come now, obey an older person […]”

   1896, Abraham Cahan, chapter 7, in Yekl: A Tale of the New York Ghetto, New York: Appleton, page 151

   “I tell you, we’re in for bad times,” de Selva sermonized before a group. “Our haciendas are threatened by renegades […]”

   1960, Paul Bartlett, chapter 11, in When the Owl Cries, New York: Macmillan

4. intransitiveTo inculcate rigid rules.

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   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.

   1748, Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield, Letters to His Son, 6th edition, London: J. Dodsley, published 1775, Volume 1, Letter 106, p. 309