To place on a really, really high pedestal. It might be a person (Linus is God, all tongue-in-cheek, all in good fun; or is it?). It might be an idea - free speech, for instance. I say absolute freedom corrupts absolutely, like the freedom to both shout "Fire!" in a crowded building and the freedom to start such fires. Freedoms tend to be gods - if you're perceived as attacking, say, sexual freedom, or the "freedom to make money", people might reach for their slingshots and stones.

De"i*fy (?), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Deified (?); p. pr. & vb. n. Deifying.] [F. d'eifier, LL. deificare, fr. L. deificus. See Deific, Deity, -fy.]

1.

To make a god of; to exalt to the rank of a deity; to enroll among the deities; to apotheosize; as, Julius Caesar was deified.

2.

To praise or revere as a deity; to treat as an object of supreme regard; as, to deify money.

He did again to extol and deify the pope. Bacon.

3.

To render godlike.

By our own spirits are we deified. Wordsworth.

 

© Webster 1913.

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