Definition
adjDevoted to religion or to religious feelings and duties; pious; extremely religious; godly.
adjExpressing devotion or piety.
Sentence Examples
The devout Christian persists in his belief.
Nevertheless, devout conversation on spiritual things helps no little with spiritual progress.
Tom was a devout Christian who believed in miracles.
Word Origin & History
Etymology tree
Proto-Indo-European *de
Proto-Indo-European *-h₁
Proto-Indo-European *déh₁
Proto-Italic *dē
Ecclesiastical Latin dē
Ecclesiastical Latin dē-
Proto-Indo-European *h₁wegʷʰ-
Proto-Indo-European *-yeti
Proto-Indo-European *-éyeti
Proto-Indo-European *h₁wogʷʰéyeti
Proto-Italic *wogʷeō
Ecclesiastical Latin voveō
Ecclesiastical Latin dēvoveō
Proto-Indo-European *-tós
Proto-Italic *-tos
Ecclesiastical Latin -tus
Ecclesiastical Latin dēvōtusbor.
Old French devotbor.
Middle English devout
English devout
Inherited from Middle English devout.
From Middle English devout, devot, from Old French devot (French dévot), from Latin dēvōtus, perfect passive participle of dēvōveō. Doublet of devote.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"a devout man, and one that feared God"
— 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Acts 10:2:
"We must be constant and devout in the worship of our God."
— a. 1729, John Rogers, The Difficulties of Obtaining Salvation:
"I first became aware of changing Hui-Han social dynamics in the village from a discussion with one of the Han villagers in Team 1. She explained: “Since 1979, we have had less and less social contact with the Hui in the other teams. There are no problems between us, but the Hui are more devout [qian-cheng] now and less willing to come to our homes and visit or borrow tools. We raise pigs in our yards and eat pork, so they are afraid it will influence their religion [yingxiang tamende jiaomen].""
— 2002, Dru C. Gladney, “Ethnoreligious Resurgence in a Northwestern Sufi Community”, in Susan D. Blum, Lionel M. Jensen, editors, China Off Center: Mapping the Margins of the Middle Kingdom, Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 109:
"The question, which visibly moved Clinton, delves into an area of the candidate’s life that is deeply personal but rarely discussed. Clinton’s friends and confidants describe the former first lady as a devout Methodist whose faith guides much of what she does."
— 2016 January 25, Dan Merica, “In personal exchange, Clinton laments using faith to ‘judge so harshly’”, in CNN, archived from the original on 06 Sep 2022: