When It Comes to Approval, Should You Praise or Lionize?
⚡ Quick summary
Praise can be about small or large achievements, while lionize suggests celebrity-level admiration and attention.
Both praise and lionize involve someone expressing admiration and approval. So what’s the difference between these two ways of showing respect for someone’s accomplishments?
Praise
To praise is to express approval or admiration for an achievement. It can be used for anything noteworthy, large or small, and it can be given to someone in private or stated to the public.
- The manager made sure to praise the team’s hard work on the project.
- The director’s debut film was praised by most critics.
Lionize
To lionize means “to treat someone as a person of great importance,” giving them lots of attention and reverence. The word often implies that these feelings are being expressed to a wide audience.
- Sports commentators still lionize the retired tennis player as the greatest of all time.
- The biography gave a fair assessment of the former president rather than lionizing him.
