homilies

noun

plural of homily
1
as in sermons
a public speech usually by a member of the clergy for the purpose of giving moral guidance or uplift last Sunday's homily was about being kind to your neighbors

Synonyms & Similar Words

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2
as in platitudes
an idea or expression that has been used by many people a TV movie filled with the usual hokey homilies about people triumphing over life's adversities

Synonyms & Similar Words

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of homilies Santa Teresa Deacon Steve Herrera in his homilies often mentions farmworkers and the need to integrate the Catholic faith with assisting them. — Eliana Aguilar, Mercury News, 7 July 2026 Cole’s canvases were synthetic constructions teeming with homilies. — Sebastian Smee, New Yorker, 4 May 2026 No lectures, no homilies, no empty words. — Lizz Schumer, PEOPLE, 26 Sep. 2025 In his fiery homilies, the Monsignor seems to target one new congregation member per week, pushing for the victory of a walkout. — David Rooney, HollywoodReporter, 3 Sep. 2019
Recent Examples of Synonyms for homilies
  1. sermons
  2. platitudes
  3. sayings
  4. bromides
  5. proverbs
  6. banalities
  7. truisms
  8. tropes
Noun
  • Not like brushing shoulders with Lil Baby and Lil Yachty is a musical death sentence (Veeze is still tearing it up), but for a rapper who specialized in free-flowing street sermons, that slight touch of formalism and structure depletes the vibe.
    — Alphonse Pierre, Pitchfork, 29 July 2026
  • Of the manuscript's six sermons, two were previously unknown.
    — Andrea Margolis, FOXNews.com, 29 July 2026
Definition of sermons
Noun
  • Leaders must understand grief's unique, individual nature, avoiding assumptions or platitudes.
    — Mena Mirhom, Forbes.com, 29 July 2026
  • The shorter run time also means some themes get reduced into syrup; the platitudes come as fast and furious as Tao and Elle’s breakups and makeups, with too little space to breathe in between.
    — Gemma Wilson, Boston Herald, 19 July 2026
Definition of platitudes
Noun
  • The next three chapters offer an anthology of sayings from rabbis who were active in the early centuries of the Common Era, including Hillel and Johanan ben Zakkai, among many other tannaim.
    — Encyclopedia Britannica, Encyclopedia Britannica, 24 July 2026
  • Where the most hopelessly corny sayings are painstakingly stitched into the equivalent of cloth graph paper by women who believe in the sayings and give the plaques to people who do not believe in the sayings.
    — Padgett Powell, Harpers Magazine, 30 June 2026
Definition of sayings
Noun
  • The president used similar bromides in private calls to assuage allies, including Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson, before launching the war in February, according to people familiar with the conversations.
    — Vivian Salama, The Atlantic, 3 June 2026
  • While these songs might appear to be somewhat straightforward EBM that wear their politics on their latex sleeve, there’s a level of ambiguity at work that moves Kissing Luck Goodbye past its own bromides and into deeper artistic territory.
    — Sadie Sartini Garner, Pitchfork, 16 Apr. 2026
Definition of bromides
Noun
  • The third film in director Éric Rohmer’s series Comedies and Proverbs, Pauline at the Beach explores the emotions (and delusions) around summer love.
    — Air Mail, Air Mail, 20 June 2026
  • For nine months, Erasmus spent his short nights in a modest dorm and his long days in the print shop, expanding on his collection of proverbs Adagiorum chiliades while Aldus proofread, craftsman carefully laying sets of print and rolling paper through the press.
    — Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 24 Nov. 2025
Definition of proverbs
Noun
  • And yet for God’s sake, just look at the man—at his dispiriting attempts at humor, his weirdly off-putting outfits, his incessant posting of banalities and faux profundities and extreme-right disinformation on social media.
    — Mark O’Connell, The New York Review of Books, 4 July 2026
  • Here, Laura, a magazine writer in London, drifts through old friendships, failed romances, and the gothic banalities of family life.
    — Air Mail, Air Mail, 20 June 2026
Definition of banalities
Noun
  • Spain’s success over the past five years has undermined many long-standing political-economic truisms.
    — Rogé Karma, The Atlantic, 1 June 2026
  • The play isn’t subtle; the final sequence leans hard on truisms about addiction and trauma, which are affecting but overly explicit.
    — Sheldon Pearce, New Yorker, 20 Feb. 2026
Definition of truisms
Noun
  • The book pays homage to all your classic romance tropes — fake relationship, enemies to lovers, boy next door — but spins them on their head in this new take on what happily ever after looks like.
    — Matt Grobar, Deadline, 31 July 2026
  • The series premiering on Starz is, more than anything else, blandly familiar, mining all the tropes of several popular genres without finding anything distinctive in the combination.
    — Daniel Fienberg, HollywoodReporter, 30 July 2026
Definition of tropes

Browse Nearby Words

homiletic
homilies
homily
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Cite this Entry

“Homilies.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/homilies. Accessed 5 Aug. 2026.

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