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Definition of "lionize" []

  • To look on or treat (a person) as a celebrity. (verb-transitive)

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.

Use "lionize" in a sentence
  • "The verb "lionize" "to treat as a celebrity" suggests the idea that lions are deserving of attention, perhaps very fitting for the King of the Jungle."
  • "There was either a desire to say that it was my fault, that if I had just not behaved so badly everything would have been fine, or there was a desire to kind of lionize me as some kind of hero figure."
  • "It would still have been a mistake to lionize Witt for choosing only the rite of passage, football, over its intended outcome, the civic leadership cherished by Cecil Rhodes and, once upon a time, by Yale."