Definition of "sermonize"

And doe not our Prelates thus, when […] they disgrace and traduce Preaching, calling it in scorne, Sermonizing?

1636, Henry Burton, For God, and the King‎, Amsterdam: J.F. Stam, page 150

Don’t be alarmed, I am not going to sermonize—but what is almost as dull, to narrate.

1776, Elizabeth Griffith, The Story of Lady Juliana Harley‎, London: T. Cadell, Volume 1, Letter 1, p. 2

“ […] I am perhaps talking rather superfluously; but a man likes to assume superiority over himself, by holding up his bad example and sermonizing on it.”

1872, George Eliot, chapter 45, in Middlemarch‎

[…] she would distrust him if she saw him again before he had achieved all his promises; had journeyed clear out to the Mississippi […] and had become fluent in sermonizing in the Dakota language. No, he must see her next in his glory as a practicing missionary.

1949, Sinclair Lewis, chapter 13, in The God-Seeker‎, New York: Popular Library, page 69

Sometimes Claude would lead Joseph to the Louvre—a magnificence Joseph had never before entered—and point out the darker paintings and sermonize on them; Claude was an aesthete.

1983, Cynthia Ozick, The Cannibal Galaxy, New York: Dutton, published 1984, page 12

He wishes, I suppose, to sermonize me: but I shall not give him an opportunity—

1798, Thomas Holcroft, He’s Much to Blame‎, London: G.G. and J. Robinson, act IV, scene 11, pages 68–69

“ […] we sermonised her on the presumption of attempting to teach such clever blades as we were, when she was herself so ignorant.”

1847, Charlotte Brontë, chapter 17, in Jane Eyre‎

Why was the choice o’ the man to niche himselfPerversely ’neath the tower where Time’s own tongueThus undertakes to sermonize the world?

1869, Robert Browning, The Ring and the Book‎, London: Smith, Elder, Volume 4, Book 10, lines 459-461, p. 21

He could talk morals to others in the grand manner, and with positive enjoyment, but to be sermonized himself secretly exasperated him because it constrained him and made him self-conscious.

1914, Arnold Bennett, chapter 6, in The Price of Love‎, London: Methuen, page 126

[…] maybe she sermonized us both about love because of her sons.

1953, Saul Bellow, chapter 3, in The Adventures of Augie March, New York: Viking Press, page 28

“Children, children! Woe, how you do sin!” Mrs. Kavarsky sermonized. “Come now, obey an older person […] ”

1896, Abraham Cahan, chapter 7, in Yekl: A Tale of the New York Ghetto‎, New York: Appleton, page 151

Then as one man they jumped to their feet and by reason of prolonged cheering gave national impulse to a thought which has since been sermonized from thousands of pulpits.

1917, George Creel (uncredited author) and Douglas Fairbanks, Laugh and Live, New York: Britton, Chapter 17, p. 144

“I tell you, we’re in for bad times,” de Selva sermonized before a group. “Our haciendas are threatened by renegades […] ”

1960, Paul Bartlett, chapter 11, in When the Owl Cries‎, New York: Macmillan

If you consider my letters in their true light as conveying to you the advice of a Friend, who sincerely wishes you happiness, and desires to promote your pleasures, you will both read and attend them; but, if you consider them in their opposite, and very false light, as the dictates of a morose and sermonizing Father, I am sure they will be not only unattended to, but unread.

1748, Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield, Letters to His Son‎, 6th edition, London: J. Dodsley, published 1775, Volume 1, Letter 106, p. 309