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PlainSpell

deify

/ˈdiː.ə.faɪ/verb

deify is a verb meaning “To make into a god” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled D-E-I-F-Y and has 3 syllables, and it appears about once in every 15 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).

What does deify mean?

verb

  1. 1

    To make into a god.

    Near-synonyms: demideify, mythologize

  2. 2

    To regard as being like a deity; to treat as worthy of worship; to exalt.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce deify?

  • UK /ˈdeɪ.ɪ.faɪ/
  • UK /ˈdiː.ɪ.faɪ/
  • US /ˈdiː.ə.faɪ/

Deify has 3 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-deify.ogg, En-us-deify-2.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of deify

  • deifies present, singular, he/she/it
  • deifying participle, present
  • deified participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is deify?

Deify appears about once in every 15 million words in written English, the 117,098th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Deify in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

In the sense to make into a god:

LanguageWords
Frenchdéifier
Germanals Gott verehren, vergöttern
Portuguesedeificar, endeusar, divinizar
Spanishdeificar, endiosar

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does deify come from?

From French déifier, from Latin deificāre, from deus (“god”). By surface analysis, deity + -ify.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).