goddess

Meanings

1. 1nouncountablereligion

   A female god; a female being who is worshiped or believed to have supernatural power.

   Grammar: Often capitalized when it is a name or title: the Goddess Athena.

   Patterns

   • the goddess of something
   • worship a goddess

   Athena was the Greek goddess of wisdom.

   Ancient farmers prayed to a goddess of the harvest.

   The temple was built in honor of the goddess.

2. 2nouncountableinformalapproving

   A woman who is greatly admired for her beauty, talent or presence.

   Grammar: Informal and admiring; may feel exaggerated or overly flattering.

   Patterns

   • a goddess of something

   The singer was hailed as a goddess of soul.

   Fans called the tennis star a goddess on the court.

   At the party she looked like a goddess in her gold gown.

3. 3nouncountablefigurative

   Something or someone that a person treats with almost religious devotion, putting it above everything else.

   Grammar: Figurative; it usually appears with a possessive or a noun of what is worshiped.

   Patterns

   • the goddess of something

   For the ambitious lawyer, success was the only goddess worth serving.

   The magazine treated beauty as a goddess that must never be questioned.

   He called fame a cruel goddess that gives and takes.

Word forms

Common combinations

Greek goddess

The statue showed a Greek goddess holding a wreath.

goddess of love

Aphrodite was the goddess of love.

mother goddess

Many ancient cultures worshiped a mother goddess.

fertility goddess

Archaeologists found a small figure of a fertility goddess.

goddess of the hearth

Hestia was the Greek goddess of the hearth.

worship a goddess

The villagers worship a goddess of the river.

Synonyms and how they differ

deity

Deity is a gender-neutral formal word for any god or goddess, while goddess is specifically female.

divinity

Divinity is a more general, formal term for a divine being or for godliness itself, so it is less specific than goddess.

diva

Diva means a famous, often demanding female singer, so it is about performance and not religion.

idol

Idol is a person or image that is greatly loved or worshiped, but it carries no sense of being female.

Opposites

Word family

god noun

a male deity, or any deity in general

godliness noun

the quality of being devoted to God or like a god

godlike adjective

resembling a god, as in having godlike power

godhood noun

the state of being a god

Commonly confused: goddess or godess?

Practice

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Write a sentence using “goddess”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.

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