devote

devote 1 Devote, dedicate, consecrate, hallow mean to set apart something or less often someone for a particular use or end.

Devote often implies a giving up or setting apart because of motives almost as impelling as those that demand a vow

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devotes her full time to the care of the unfortunate

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the administrative work . . . deprived him of the time and energy which he longed to devote to historical research— Callender

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e!oquence, erudition, and philosophy . . . were humbly devoted to the service of religion— Gibbon

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he cared too little for diplomacy to devote himself to it— Commins

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Dedicate implies solemn and exclusive devotion and often a ceremonial setting apart for a serious and often a sacred use

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idedicate a memorial

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I will dedicate all the actions of my life to that one end— Belloc

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I had devoted the labor of my whole life, and had dedicated my intellect ... to the slow and elaborate toil of constructing one single work— De Quincey

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Consecrate implies the giving of a sacred or exalted character

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his effect was to consecrate the Prussian State and to enshrine bureaucratic absolutism— Dewey

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especially by rites (as those by which a building is set apart for the service or worship of God or by which a bishop or king is elevated to his throne or by which ground is set apart as a burial place of the dead)

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kings of England are consecrated in Westminster Abbey

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the right of burial in consecrated ground

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In more general applications consecrate while not implying such rites does carry a stronger connotation of almost religious devotion than dedicate

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a night of memories and of sighs I consecrate to thee— Landor

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Hallow is a still stronger term, partly because of its use in the Lord's Prayer

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"Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name"

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and partly because it often implies an ascription of intrinsic sanctity. Unlike the foregoing terms hallow is not normally used of oneself; thus, one may devote or dedicate or occasionally consecrate oneself to something (as a duty, a responsibility, or an interest), but one hallows something or more rarely someone

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his marriage was hallowed and made permanent by the Church— Barr

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but in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground— Lincoln

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Hallow may also be used to imply a mere respecting or making respectable (as by reason of age or custom) without suggesting a sacred character

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you justify everything, hallow everything— Elizabeth Taylor

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dirty yellow varnish no longer interposes here its hallowing influence between the spectator and the artist's original creation— Fry

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Analogous words: *commit, consign, confide, entrust: assign, *aIIot: *sentence, doom

2 apply, *direct, address

Analogous words: endeavor, strive, struggle, try, *attempt