venerate
VEN-er-aytverbMeaning to regard with deep respect, often for age or wisdom
Memory hook ven-ERA-te: honored from an old ERA. Every spring the town gathers under the five-hundred-year-old oak, a survivor from a long-ago era, and leaves flowers at its roots. The townspeople venerate it.
The villagers venerate the ancient oak that has shaded their square for five hundred years.
In context The young chefs venerated Granny Mae: at ninety, she had cooked in the same kitchen for seventy years, and half the recipes in the town’s cookbook began with hers.
Similar revere, deeply respect, look up to
Opposite scorn, despise, disrespect
From Latin venerari, “to honor, to adore.”