- adore
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Antonyms: blasphemeContrasted words: *execrate, curse2 Adore, worship, idolize in their nonreligious senses mean to love or admire excessively.Adore commonly implies emotional surrender to the charms or attractions of an object of love or admiration; it often connotes extreme adulation if the object of love is a person{
this inability . . . to project his personality is a serious weakness in a country which likes to adore its leaders— Doty
}With other objects it may connote no more than a hearty liking{like gourmets and yellow flies, sows adore eating truffles— Lauber
}Worship usually implies more extravagant admiration or more servile attentions than adore; it also commonly connotes an awareness of one’s own inferiority or of one’s distance from the object of one’s love{he worships his wife
}{small boys who worship astronauts
}Idolize often implies absurdly excessive admiration or doting love{idolizing money in life and poetry—New School Bulletin
}Sometimes, however, it comes very close to adore{a spoiled child is often one that has been idolized by his parents
}Analogous words: love, dote (see LIKE): admire, esteem (see under REGARD n)Antonyms: detest
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.