homage
/(h)oʊˈmɑʒ/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.61 in modern English
12
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
2
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A demonstration of respect, as towards a person after his or her retirement or death.
Countable; Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "I ſought no homage from the Race that vvrite; / I kept, like Aſian Monarchs, from their ſight: […]"
- "When a man squeezes the hand of a pretty woman, […] she will consider such an impertinent freedom in the light of an insult, if she have any true delicacy, instead of being flattered by this unmeaning homage to beauty."
- "It’s appropriate that we pay homage to them and the sacrifices they made."
- "My rainy-day tour in April during the first lockdown was, in fact, a homage to Sir John Betjeman - the poet and railway campaigner whose statue can be found on the upper concourse of St Pancras station."
- "He likes to tell people that it's a Hitchcockian thriller, but that's kind of like saying Happy Gilmore is a homage to Woody Allen."
- "We'll do thee homage, and be rul'd by thee, / Love thee as our commander and our king."
Etymology
From Middle English homage, from Old French homage, hommage, from Medieval Latin homināticum (“homage, the service of a vassal or 'man'”), from Latin homō (“a man, in Medieval Latin a vassal”) + -āticum (noun-forming suffix). The American pronunciations in /-ɑːʒ/ and with silent h are due to confusion with the nearly synonymous doublet hommage, which is indeed pronounced /oʊˈmɑːʒ/.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: homage, homināticum, homō
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /(h)oʊˈmɑʒ/
- British English: /ˈhɒmɪd͡ʒ/