Skip to main content
PlainSpell

worshipful

wor·ship·ful/ˈwɝʃɪpfl̩/adjective

worshipful is an adjective meaning “Tending to worship; showing reverence” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled W-O-R-S-H-I-P-F-U-L and has 3 syllables (wor·ship·ful), and it appears about once in every 3 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).

What does worshipful mean?

adjective

  1. 1

    Tending to worship; showing reverence.

  2. 2

    archaicEntitled to dignity or respect; distinguished, respected, illustrious.

  3. 3

    UKUsed as respectful form of address or honorific title for a person or body of persons, now especially in the name of a livery company.

  4. 4

    Worthy of worship.

noun

  1. 1

    obsoleteOne who is respected or distinguished.

  2. 2

    obsoleteA magistrate (specifically).

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

How do you pronounce worshipful?

  • UK /ˈwɜːʃɪpfl̩/
  • UK /ˈwɔː-/
  • US /ˈwɝʃɪpfl̩/

Worshipful has 3 syllables, split wor·ship·ful in writing.

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

Forms of worshipful

  • more worshipful comparative
  • most worshipful superlative

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

How common is worshipful?

Worshipful appears about once in every 3 million words in written English, the 52,954th 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).

How do you abbreviate worshipful?

Wiktionary records one abbreviation of worshipful: wpfl..

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

Where does worshipful come from?

From Middle English worshipful; equivalent to worship + -ful.

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