Word of the Day

: September 24, 2023

lionize

verb LYE-uh-nyze

What It Means

To lionize someone is to treat them as a person of great interest or importance.

// While her name was not attached to her books in her lifetime (she published anonymously), Jane Austen continues two centuries hence to be lionized as one of the English language's greatest novelists.

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lionize in Context

“What I love about this memoir, which won the National Book Award for Nonfiction in 2019, is its incredible sense of place. [Sarah M.] Broom’s story is submerged in one of the most lionized—and complex—cities in America: New Orleans. More specifically, she focuses on New Orleans East and the yellow shotgun house that the author’s steadfast mother, Ivory Mae, bought in 1961, and where Broom grew up as the youngest of 12 siblings.” — Isaac Fitzgerald, The Atlantic, 10 Aug. 2022

Did You Know?

Across time and across cultures—as evidenced from Chauvet-Pont d’Arc’s paintings to The Lion King—lions have captured people’s imaginations. Though the big cats themselves are fascinatingly complex, it’s perhaps no surprise that humans have long projected qualities of bravery and regality upon the proverbial “king of the beasts.” It is precisely those and similar admirable qualities that led, in the 18th century, to lion being used for a person who is similarly well-regarded, especially after a long and distinguished career in a particular field, as in “lion of the Senate,” or “literary lion.” This sense of lion imbues the verb lionize, which first appeared in English in the early 19th century to apply to acts of treating someone as, perhaps, deserving of roaring applause.