Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • transitive verb To give or apply (one's time, attention, or self, for example) entirely to a particular activity, pursuit, cause, or person.
  • transitive verb To set apart for a specific purpose or use.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To appropriate by or as if by vow; set apart or dedicate by a solemn act or with firm intention; consecrate.
  • To doom; consign to some harm or evil; doom to destruction: used absolutely, to curse or execrate.
  • To addict or surrender, as to an occupation or a pursuit; give or yield up; direct in action or thought.
  • Synonyms Devote, Dedicate, Consecrate, Hallow, destine, set apart. In dedicate and the cognate words devote, devout, etc., the root idea is always that of a complete mental consecration; thus, devotion (def. 2) is the consecration of the entire mind to God and his worship; and a devout (def. 1) spirit is one entirely absorbed in the worship or service of God. To devote indicates the inward act, state, or feeling; to dedicate is to set apart by a promise, and indicates primarily an external act; to consecrate is to make sacred, and refers to an act affecting the use or relations of the thing consecrated; to hallow is to make holy, and relates to the character of the person or thing hallowed. Thus, we devote ourselves by an act of the mind; we dedicate our lives or property by a more formal act; we consecrate to sacred uses a building not before sacred; and we hallow the name of God, recognizing in it its inherent holy character.
  • Devoted; devout.
  • noun A devotee.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective obsolete Devoted; addicted; devout.
  • transitive verb To appropriate by vow; to set apart or dedicate by a solemn act; to consecrate; also, to consign over; to doom; to evil; to devote one to destruction; the city was devoted to the flames.
  • transitive verb obsolete To execrate; to curse.
  • transitive verb To give up wholly; to addict; to direct the attention of wholly or compound; to attach; -- often with a reflexive pronoun
  • noun obsolete A devotee.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb To give one's time, focus one's efforts, commit oneself, etc. entirely for, on, or to a certain matter.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb set aside or apart for a specific purpose or use
  • verb give entirely to a specific person, activity, or cause
  • verb dedicate

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin dēvovēre, dēvōt-, to vow : dē-, de- + vovēre, to vow.]

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Examples

  • Jet magazine should never again devote its magazine cover to occasion of Foxy Brown's release from jail for any other person for that matter.

    Morris W. O'Kelly: Rapper T.I. Gets 11 Months in Jail -- Hallelujah Morris W. O'Kelly 2010

  • Jet magazine should never again devote its magazine cover to occasion of Foxy Brown's release from jail for any other person for that matter.

    Morris W. O'Kelly: Rapper T.I. Gets 11 Months in Jail -- Hallelujah Morris W. O 2010

  • Why, you may ask, do we non-believers take a moment out of our lives once a year to honor a man who is popularly known as a devote Christian who became a civil rights hero?

    Planet Atheism 2010

  • And what reason hath the church of God to admit none to be her ministers to consecrate and daily receive this most pure sacrament, but such as devote themselves to

    The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Complete The Challoner Revision Anonymous

  • Gospel than such as devote themselves to conversation with God in retreat, and who leave that retreat to preach the doctrines of salvation only when they have reason to think that God calls upon them to do so.

    The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi Father Candide Chalippe

  • And what reason hath the church of God to admit none to be her ministers to consecrate and daily receive this most pure sacrament, but such as devote themselves to a life of perpetual purity.

    The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Complete Anonymous

  • And what reason hath the church of God to admit none to be her ministers to consecrate and daily receive this most pure sacrament, but such as devote themselves to

    The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Book 09: 1 Kings The Challoner Revision

  • That he thought of her intently, constantly, I need hardly say; most people wondered why such a clever young man shouldn't "devote" himself to something; but to himself he seemed absorbingly occupied.

    Madame De Mauves Henry James 1879

  • The same deliverance furnishes the imagery by which the return from Babylon is described (Isa 48: 20, 21). destroy -- literally, "devote," or "doom," that is, dry up; for what God dooms, perishes (Ps 106: 9 Na 1: 4). tongue -- the Bubastic branch of the Nile [Vitringa]; but as the Nile was not the obstruction to the exodus, it is rather the west tongue or

    Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible 1871

  • So we understand that Micah was unable to get to Jerusalem and perhaps for some kind of devote reason he decided he would build a replica of the temple on his own property.

    British Blogs End Times Prophetic 2010

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    January 1, 2009