solemnize

verb

1. (US, transitive)To make solemn, or official, through ceremony or legal act.

   “The couple chose to solemnize their relationship in a secular ceremony, instead of having a wedding.”

   “He now is gone to pꝛooue Coſmography, / And as I gueſſe, wil firſt ariue at Rome, / To ſee the Pope, and manner of his court, / And take ſome part of holy Peters feaſt, / That to this day is highly ſolemnizd.”

   “Saint Luke declaring how Peter ſtood vp in the midſt of his Diſciples, did thereby deliuer an vnchangeable rule, that whatſoeuer is done in the Church ought to be done in the midſt of the church, and therefore not Baptiſme to be adminiſtred in one place, Mariage ſolemnized in an other, […]”

   “[…] Upon the heads of all who ſate beneath, / Lords, Ladies, Captains, Councellors, or Prieſts, / Thir choice nobility and flower, not only / Of this but each Philiſtian City round / Met from all parts to ſolemnize this Feaſt.”

   “The great mysteries solemnised at Eleusis.”

2. To make grave, serious, and reverential.

   “September 27, 1873, John Campbell Shairp, "Wordsworth's Three Yarrows", in Every Saturday Wordsworth was solemnized and elevated by this his first look on Yarrow.”

   “Every Israelite […] arose, solemnized his face, looked towards Jerusalem […] and prayed.”