Reverend

How to spell reverend

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce reverend

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does reverend mean?

1. nounA member of the clergy, or the honorific title placed before such a person's name.
2. adjectiveDeserving deep respect, especially as applied formally to clergy.

Reverend in a sentence

• noun

  The reverend led the morning service at the village church.

• adjective

  The invitation was addressed to the reverend doctor by name.

• noun

  A local reverend visited the patients on the ward every Sunday.

• adjective

  The order is led by a most reverend archbishop.

Where does reverend come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin reverendus, which literally means 'to be revered' or 'worthy of being revered'. It is the gerundive form of the verb revereri, 'to stand in awe of' or 'to respect deeply', built from the intensifying prefix re- and the verb vereri, meaning 'to fear' or 'to hold in awe'. English took it on in the fifteenth century as a general adjective of high respect, and over time it narrowed into the formal honorific placed before the names of members of the clergy. Its close cousin reverent, also from revereri, describes the feeling of deep respect itself, and the two are constantly confused in writing because reverend ends in -nd while reverent ends in -nt. Remembering that reverend means 'one to be revered', the gerundive sense, helps fix that final d in place.

How the word is built

• rever- (to revere, from Latin revereri 'to stand in awe of')
• -end (Latin gerundive ending meaning 'to be', so literally 'to be revered')