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What is "sermonize"

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
sermonize
verb
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Bennett and others promote cultural renewal through public sermonizing and support for local initiatives like church programs to teach parental responsibility.
▪ No wonder they sermonize and embrace.
▪ You have to sermonize about the good times.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Sermonize

Sermonize \Ser"mon*ize\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Sermonized; p. pr. & vb. n. Sermonizing.]

  1. To compose or write a sermon or sermons; to preach.

  2. To inculcate rigid rules. [R.]
    --Chesterfield.

Sermonize

Sermonize \Ser"mon*ize\, v. t. To preach or discourse to; to affect or influence by means of a sermon or of sermons. [R.]

Which of us shall sing or sermonize the other fast asleep?
--Landor.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
sermonize

1630s, from Medieval Latin sermonizari, from Latin sermo (see sermon). "Chiefly depreciatory" [OED]. Related: Sermonizing.

Wiktionary
sermonize

vb. 1 To speak in the manner of a sermon. 2 To propagate one's morality with speech. 3 To inculcate rigid rules.

WordNet
sermonize

v. speak as if delivering a sermon; express moral judgements; "This man always sermonizes" [syn: sermonise, preachify, moralize, moralise]

Usage examples of "sermonize".

Presbyterians in great Conestoga Waggons haunt the Approaches to taverns and inns, gathering up sinners of all degrees and persuasions, taking them far out into the Country, and subjecting them to intense sermonizing until they either escape, go to sleep, or find the true turning of Heart that needs no Authentication.

As he sermonized, Capril couldn’t help but feel some pride that he had more vedeks in his flock tonight than in almost any past service he had ever attended, much less one that he had administered.

This is why moralistic preaching is such a failure: it breeds only cunning hypocrites--people sermonized into shame, guilt, or fear, who thereupon force themselves to behave as if they actually loved others, so that their "virtues" are often more destructive, and arouse more resentment, than their "vices.

Brilliant economic analysts like the Guardian’s Larry Elliot and complete cranks like Robert Schiller sermonized about the coming “Day of Reckoning”.