Word.ws English Dictionary

hymn

/hɪm/

hymn noun: a song of praise or worship, especially a religious one.

Noun

hymn (plural hymns)

  1. A song of praise or worship, especially a religious one.
    • But when the moon rose and the breeze awakened, and the sedges stirred, and the cat’s-paws raced across the moonlit ponds, and the far surf off Wonder Head intoned the hymn of the four winds, the trinity, earth and sky and water, became one thunderous symphony—a harmony of sound and colour silvered...1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter VIII, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC
    • An interesting feature of the church is the invisible clock, which you can hear thumping away as you enter. Constructed in 1525, it is one of the oldest timepieces in England. It chimes the hours and the quarters, and every three hours it plays a hymn. But it has no faces.1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd, page 163

Verb

hymn (third-person singular simple present hymns, present participle hymning, simple past and past participle hymned)

  1. (ambitransitive) To sing a hymn.
    • An unknown cast, including Diane Keaton, hymned the Age of Aquarius, stripped off at the end of the first act and let the sunshine in at the end of the second.2009 January 21, Michael Coveney, “Tom O'Horgan”, in The Guardian
  2. (transitive) To praise or extol in hymns.
    • To hymn the birth-night of the Lord.1827, [John Keble], The Christian Year: Thoughts in Verse for the Sundays and Holydays throughout the Year, volume (please specify |volume=I or II), Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] [B]y W. Baxter, for J....
    • Their praise is hymned by loftier harps than mine.1816, Lord Byron, “Canto III”, in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. Canto the Third, London: […] [F]or John Murray, […], →OCLC, stanza XXIX

hymn meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

hymn in Hindi

a song of praise or worship
भजन bhajan, स्तोत्र stotra

hymn in Tamil

a song of praise or worship
பாசுரம் pācuram, தேவாரம் tēvāram

hymn in Marathi

a song of praise or worship
ईशस्तोत्र īśastotra, भजन bhajan

hymn in Urdu

a song of praise or worship
حَمْد ḥamd, ثَنا s̱anā, کَلام kalām, نَظْم naz̤m
More languagesFewer languages
hymn in Bengali
স্তবগান stobogan
hymn in Telugu
కీర్తన kīrtana
hymn in Malayalam
ദൈവസ്തുതി daivastuti, സ്തോത്രം stōtraṁ, സങ്കീർത്തനം saṅkīṟttanaṁ
hymn in Kannada
ಸ್ತೋತ್ರ stōtra
hymn in Punjabi
ਗੀਤ gīt, ਪਦ pad, ਭਜਨ bhajan
hymn in Gujarati
ભજન bhajan, સ્તોત્ર stotra, ઋચા ŕcā
hymn in Odia
ସ୍ତବଗାନ
hymn in Sanskrit
ऋषि ṛ́ṣi
hymn in Tagalog
himno
hymn in Arabic
تَرْتِيلَة tartīla, تَرْنِيمَة tarnīma, تَسْبِيحَة tasbīḥa
hymn in Malay
gita puja
hymn in Indonesian
gita puja, himne
hymn in Persian
سرود sorud, گاتا gâtâ, یسنا yasnâ
hymn in Thai
เพลงสวด pleeng-sùuat
hymn in Vietnamese
thánh ca
hymn in Myanmar
ချီးမွမ်းသီချင်း hkyi:mwam:sihkyang:

Examples of hymn in a sentence

  • A recessional hymn is sung in a procession returning from the choir to the robing room.
  • The antiphonal hymn was sung regularly at church.
  • The hymn “Amazing Grace” is in common meter.

All 40 example sentences with hymn

Forms of hymn

Noun
pluralhymns
Verb
third-person singular presenthymns
present participlehymning
past participlehymned
pasthymned

Plural of hymn: hymns

Origin of hymn

From Middle English ymne, from Old English ymen (reinforced by Old French ymne), from Latin hymnus, borrowed from Ancient Greek ὕμνος (húmnos).

Words formed from hymn

Phrases with hymn

Words that rhyme with hymn

35 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about hymn

What does hymn mean?
Hymn means a song of praise or worship, especially a religious one.
What is hymn in Hindi?
Hymn in Hindi is भजन (bhajan), स्तोत्र (stotra). See Hymn meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is hymn?
Hymn can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce hymn?
Hymn is pronounced /hɪm/.
What is the plural of hymn?
The plural of hymn is hymns.

Words near hymn in the dictionary

  1. hymexazol
  2. Hymie
  3. Hymies
  4. Hymietown
  5. Hymiskviða
  6. hymn
  7. hymn book
  8. hymn books
  9. hymn-book
  10. hymn-books
  11. hymnal

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hymn (page history and authors); కీర్తన (Telugu) (page history and authors); ಸ್ತೋತ್ರ (Kannada) (page history and authors); hymn (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); ऋषि (Sanskrit) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-hymn.ogg.

Cite this entry: “hymn.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hymn. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.