Canonise

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To officially declare a deceased individual a saint
2. To elevate someone to a saintly status through a formal process
3. To recognize and commemorate an individual as a saint within a religious tradition

Etymology: "Canonise" is simply the British spelling of "canonize," and its history is the history of the Greek word "kanon," meaning a measuring rod or straight rule. From that sense of a standard, Greek and then Latin speakers extended the word to mean a rule or list, and in the Church it came to denote an official list of accepted books and, later, of officially recognised saints. Declaring someone a saint is thus a matter of adding their name to a formal register, much as a rule is applied to measure something. The verb is built in English from the noun "canon" with the suffix "-ise," which turns a noun into a verb meaning to make or treat in a certain way. So to canonise someone is, literally, to enter them into the Church's canon.

Synonyms: sanctify, beatify