honorific
honorific Lexical Profile
honorific Game Scores & Validity
• noun
A title, word, or grammatical form that conveys esteem, courtesy, or respect for social rank when addressing or referring to a person.
"In professional correspondence, it is customary to include the appropriate honorific before the recipient's surname."
• adjective
Conferring or showing high respect or honor; used especially of titles or forms of address.
"The university bestowed an honorific title upon the retiring dean in recognition of her decades of service."
Relating to or denoting grammatical forms, words, or affixes used to encode the relative social status of speakers and addressees.
"Students of Japanese must master complex honorific verb forms before entering a formal business environment."
• Rhymes for honorific
Word Origin & Etymology
Borrowed in the mid-17th century from Latin honorificus, meaning 'doing honor,' combined from honor ('honor, esteem') and the suffix -ficus ('making, doing,' from facere).