From Middle English sermoun, from Anglo-Norman sermun and/or Old French sermon, from Latin sermō, from Proto-Indo-European *sermō, from *ser- ("to bind") + *-mō.

• (British) IPA: /ˈsɜː.mən/
• (America) IPA: /ˈsɝ.mən/

sermon (plural sermons)

1. Religious discourse; a written or spoken address on a religious or moral matter.
   • 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter III, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC ↗:

     One saint's day in mid-term a certain newly appointed suffragan-bishop came to the school chapel, and there preached on “The Inner Life.”  He at once secured attention by his informal method, and when presently the coughing of Jarvis […] interrupted the sermon, he altogether captivated his audience with a remark about cough lozenges being cheap and easily procurable.

2. A lengthy speech of reproval.

• French: sermon, prêche
• German: Predigt
• Italian: sermone, predica
• Portuguese: sermão
• Russian: про́поведь
• Spanish: sermón

• French: sermon, prêche
• German: Predigt, Moralpredigt, Strafpredigt
• Italian: sermone, predica, arringa
• Portuguese: sermão
• Russian: поуче́ние
• Spanish: sermón

From Middle English sermonen, from Old French sermoner, from sermon (see above).

sermon (sermons, present participle sermoning; simple past and past participle sermoned)

1. (poetic, obsolete) To discourse to or of, as in a sermon.
   • January 23 1583, Edmund Spenser, letter to Walter Raleigh

     To some I know this methode will seem displeasaunt, which had rather have good discipline delivered plainly in way of precepts, or sermoned at large, as they use, then thus clowdily enwrapped in allegorical devises

2. (poetic, obsolete) To tutor; to lecture.
   • c. 1605–1608, William Shakespeare, “The Life of Tymon of Athens”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC ↗, [Act II, scene ii], line 177:

     Come, sermon me no further.