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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

cherish.

To treat with affection, care, and tenderness; to nurture or protect with care.

7 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

verb/ˈt͡ʃɛɹɪʃ/General-American, Received-Pronunciation
  1. To treat with affection, care, and tenderness; to nurture or protect with care.

  2. To have a deep appreciation of; to hold dear.

    I cherish your friendship.
    his long-cherished dream
  3. To cheer, to gladden.

    obsolete
Where this word comes from

From Middle English charish, cherishen (“to have affection for, hold dear, treat kindly; to esteem, respect; to cherish; to take care of; to greet; to entertain, treat hospitably; to cheer; to encourage, incite”), from Old French cheriss-, chieriss-, extended stem of cherir, chierir (“to cherish”) (modern French chérir (“to cherish”)), from cher, chier (“dear, dearest”) (from Latin cārus (“beloved, dear”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *keh₂- (“to desire, wish”)) + -ir (suffix forming infinitives of second conjugation verbs).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.