Definition of "venerable" []

• Commanding respect by virtue of age, dignity, character, or position. (adjective)
• Worthy of reverence, especially by religious or historical association: venerable relics. (adjective)
• Roman Catholic Church Used as a form of address for a person who has reached the first stage of canonization. (adjective)
• Used as a form of address for an archdeacon in the Anglican Church or the Episcopal Church. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "The word venerable originates from the name Venus, the Roman goddess of love and sexuality."
• "How I shall henceforth dwell on the blessed hours when, not long since, I saw that benignant face, the clear eyes, the silently smiling mouth, the form yet upright in its great age—to the very last, with so much spring and cheeriness, and such an absence of decrepitude, that even the term venerable hardly seem’d fitting."
• "How I shall henceforth dwell on the blessed hours when, not long since, I saw that benignant face, the clear eyes, the silently smiling mouth, the form yet upright in its great age -- to the very last, with so much spring and cheeriness, and such an absence of decrepitude, that even the term venerable hardly seem'd fitting."