worship [OE] The writings of Alfred the Great, king of Wessex from 871 to 899, are the first source of worship, which is literally ‘worthship’. It initially meant ‘good name, credit’ and ‘dignity, importance’, which survives in your worship, used for a high-ranking person such as a magistrate or mayor. The word was not found in religious contexts until around 1200. Hero worship [E18th] originally referred to the ancient worship of heroes such as Hercules, regarded as semi-divine, and often the subject of myths. The historian Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) was partly responsible for the spread of the modern sense [L18th]—his lectures ‘On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History’, published in 1841, expounded his view that history is fundamentally the history of great men, who are worshipped as heroes.