Knowing when to capitalize religious terms can be hell. Or should that be Hell? And there we get to the crux of the matter. Are words from religions always capitalized? Is it only when you use these terms in a religious context? Or should you just say “to heck with it” and stop caring?

Well, before you do that, check out our guide to capitalizing religious terms.

When to Capitalize Religious Terms

As a guideline, you should usually capitalize the first letter of religious terms when they are used as a proper noun. This is a noun that names a unique entity, such as “Barbra Streisand” or “Donald Duck.”

In a religious context, proper nouns may include:

• Religions and religious movements (e.g., Judaism, Methodism)

• Religious figures and deities (e.g., Jesus, Zeus)

• Holy texts (e.g., Bible, Quran)

• Religious holidays (e.g., Easter, Diwali)

• Titles when used with a name (e.g., Reverend Green)

However, there are some cases where the correct capitalization depends on how you’re using a term. We will look at a few of these below.

God, Gods, Goddesses and Proper Nouns

As mentioned above, you should always capitalize the first letter in a proper noun. If you were referring to the Christian deity, for instance, you would need to capitalize the “G” in “God”:

I am here only by the grace of God.

But some words, like “god,” can be either proper or common nouns depending on how we use them. So if you were referring to gods and goddesses in general, or any god or goddess where “god” is not part of their name, you would need to use a lower case “g” instead:

Prior to Christianization, the Anglo Saxons worshipped the Germanic gods and goddesses, including Ēostre, the goddess of the dawn and spring.

Notice that we do, however, capitalize Ēostre in the example above, even though we use a lower case “g” for “goddess.” This is because Ēostre is the name of a goddess, so it is a proper noun.

Other Inconsistent Capitalization

“God” is the most prominent example of something we only capitalize in certain cases. However, there are many religious terms that have second meanings. And you should only capitalize these words if you use them in a religious context, not when they’re used elsewhere.

For instance, we would capitalize “Catholic” in “the Catholic Church.” But “catholic” can also mean “all-embracing.” And we would not use a capital “C” to write about someone with interests in a range of seemingly unrelated things (i.e., someone with “catholic tastes”).

Likewise, we would capitalize the “M” in “Mass” if we were talking about the religious ceremony. But we would not usually capitalize the same word when using it as an adjective in “mass market” or “mass transit.” It pays, then, to double check whether religious terms have other uses.

Holy Pronouns

In the past, it was common to capitalize the first letters of pronouns when referring to religious figures. This is known as reverential capitalization. For instance, if we used “his” to refer to God, we might capitalize the “H”:

Our hearts shall rejoice in God and His holy name!

This is quite unusual in modern writing. However, if you do use reverential capitalization, there are two key rules to follow:

1. Only apply it to pronouns that refer to deities and divine beings.

2. Apply it consistently throughout your writing.

You can apply reverential capitalization in other situations as well, but it is most common with pronouns.

To ensure consistency, you may also want to have your writing proofread. But if you do, let your editor know which terms you’ve chosen to capitalize.

Heaven and Hell

Finally, we have heaven and hell. As a rule, you do not need to capitalize these terms. This is true even when referring to the Christian concepts of “heaven” and “hell.” Take Matthew 5:18 from the NIV Bible, for instance:

For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.

However, some religious institutions do prefer to capitalize the words “Heaven” and “Hell.” And you should always capitalize ‘Heaven’ when referring to the famous gay nightclub in London.

What CMOS says

In their FQA section, CMOS provides an interesting perspective too.

The convention of hyphenating a compound modifier before a noun but not after—as in a well-known author versus an author who is well known—has been Chicago style since the first edition (published in 1906).

Over the years, CMOS has added certain exceptions, including for compounds with all and free, both of which retain their hyphens after the noun, as in a desire that’s all-consuming or a yogurt that’s fat-free.

The 18th edition lists some additional always-hyphenated compounds (besides the ones with all and free) in paragraph 7.92: cost-effective, dyed-in-the-wool, first-rate, high-spirited, ill-advised, old-fashioned, short-lived, and wild-eyed.

Those aren’t the only compound modifiers (also known as phrasal adjectives) that keep their hyphens after a noun. Some can be derived from the compounds listed above—including ill-defined and other terms with ill (see the hyphenation table at CMOS 7.96, section 3, “Compounds Formed with Specific Terms”).

But how will you know whether you’ve found one of these compounds that would remain hyphenated after the noun if it isn’t covered in CMOS? Dictionaries can help, but you may want to consult more than one.

Things That Are Well Known . . .

Well-known things (with a hyphen) are well known (without a hyphen), a principle that goes all the way back to the first edition of CMOS, which featured the examples “well-known author” and “a man well known in the neighborhood” (¶ 167; italics added).

The idea is that hyphens add clarity before a noun but are otherwise unnecessary.

The term well-known was also sufficiently well known to have been recorded in standard dictionaries from that era, as shown by this entry on page 1641 (via the Internet Archive) from an 1898 edition of Webster’s International Dictionary of the English Language (published in Springfield, MA, by G. and C. Merriam):

The literary example in that entry, from the nineteenth-century poet and essayist Matthew Arnold, happens to demonstrate the principle of hyphenation before a noun but not after: “A church well known [no hyphen] with a well-known rite [hyphen].”*

But you won’t find evidence for this convention if you consult the latest dictionary at Merriam-Webster.com, a modern successor (with Merriam-WebsterUnabridged) to the International. The entry at Merriam-Webster.com for well-known (as of December 2024) includes an example where the adjective follows the noun it modifies:

The anchorwoman in that example is well-known—with a hyphen. Any writer or editor consulting Merriam-Webster could be forgiven for retaining the hyphen in well-known after a noun. Should you do the same?

. . . May Also Be Well Understood

In those few cases where CMOS and Merriam-Webster disagree, as with well-known after a noun, follow CMOS when applying Chicago style. You would also do this for any compounds that aren’t in the dictionary. For example, the term well-understood isn’t currently in Merriam-Webster, not even the Unabridged (though it is in the OED):

For well-understood, then, you’d retain the hyphen before a noun but not after, per CMOS 7.91 and the hyphenation table at 7.96 (section 2, “adverb not ending in ‑ly + participle or adjective”).

And if you’re going to omit the hyphen in well-understood when it follows the noun, you should do the same for all other compound modifiers with well. That includes the ones in Merriam-Webster, from well-adjusted through well-worn, regardless of how the examples are hyphenated there.

After all, consistency is the No. 2 principle in copyediting. (“Do no harm” is No. 1.)

But what if you find a hyphenated compound adjective that’s listed in the dictionary but doesn’t seem to be covered in CMOS, not even in the hyphenation table?

A Postpositive Phenomenon (and Another Dictionary)

Let’s say you’re in the middle of editing and you come across the adjective clear-cut—after the noun: “That case isn’t clear-cut.” Do you retain the hyphen?

The hyphenation table in CMOS, section 2, under “adjective + participle,” seems to cover this case (where clear is an adjective and cut is a past participle), and the advice there says to leave such compounds open after a noun. But clear-cut itself isn’t listed there, and the process of identifying the parts of speech in a compound isn’t always so (spoiler alert) clear cut. Some of us will consult the dictionary also (or instead).

Merriam-Webster does list the adjective clear-cut, where it has a hyphen. The example included in the definition shows clear-cut before the noun (“a clear-cut decision”). But under “Recent Examples from the Web,” several of the quotations (as of December 2024) feature clear-cut as an adjective after the noun, where it’s hyphenated.

Those “Recent Examples” aren’t from Merriam-Webster, however, and that dictionary doesn’t generally say whether hyphens in compound modifiers can be omitted after a noun; the OED doesn’t either. But at least one major contemporary dictionary does: Collins English Dictionary, which is available at CollinsDictionary.com.

Collins includes separate entries for American English and British English. The entries for British English that are credited to Collins English Dictionary (entries at Collins come from various sources) sometimes include a note relative to hyphenation.

For example, the entry for clear-cut (where the term is hyphenated), includes the following note in parentheses: “clear cut when postpositive.” Here’s that entry:

According to Collins, postpositive means “(of an adjective or other modifier) placed after the word modified, either immediately after, as in two men abreast, or as part of a complement, as in those men are bad.” (See also CMOS 5.83.)

So that entry in Collins explicitly acknowledges the convention of hyphenating clear-cut before a noun but not after, as in a clear-cut case that’s clear cut. Collins does this also in its British English definitions for every well- term it defines (including well-understood).

Collins does not, however, include an unhyphenated postpositive exception for any of the terms in CMOS 7.92—including ill-advised:

Again, those entries carry the label “in British English.” But the basic principles related to hyphenation (including this one) are the same in British as in American English. It wouldn’t be ill-advised, then, to retain hyphenation after a noun for any hyphenated modifier listed in Collins that doesn’t include a postpositive exception (and vice versa).

In other words, whenever you come across a compound that you’re unsure about, Collins—though not necessarily the last word—is yet another resource you can use to check your hunches regarding hyphenation after the noun.

Summing Up

If you don’t know what to do with a compound modifier that’s not listed in paragraph 7.92, check the hyphenation table at CMOS 7.96. If you don’t find an answer there, try Merriam-Webster—or look for the term under the British English entries in Collins to see if there’s an exception there relative to hyphenation.

If you’re still unsure, resist the trend toward postpositive hyphenation and leave the compound open after a noun, provided the meaning of the text remains clear. After all, the main reason to hyphenate a compound modifier is to provide clarity before a noun, not after, a principle that is well established.†

Q: When did using the “royal we” become popular among writers of fiction and nonfiction?

A: Writers have been using the pronoun “we” to refer to themselves since Anglo-Saxon days. But the usage was primarily seen in nonfiction until the 18th and 19th centuries, when Fielding, Dickens, Thackeray, and others began using it in fiction.

In Old English, the singular “we” was used by writers as well as sovereigns and other leaders. The earliest sovereign example in the Oxford English Dictionary describes the third-century Roman Emperor Decius speaking to Pope Sixtus II:

“Witodlice we beorgað þinre ylde, gehyrsuma urum bebodum & geoffra þam undeadlicum godum” (“Verily we have regard for thy age: obey our commands, and offer to the immortal gods”). From The Homilies of the Anglo-Saxon Church, written around 990 by the Benedictine Abbot Ælfric of Eynsham.

The next example, which we’ve expanded here, is from the Old English epic Beowulf, believed to date from the early 700s, though the earliest surviving manuscript is from around 1000. Beowulf, a battle leader, not a sovereign, speaks here after singlehandedly killing the monster Grendel:

“We þæt ellenweorc estum miclum, feohtan fremedon, frecne geneðdon eafoð uncuþes” (“We have engaged in a noble endeavor and have been greatly favored in this battle we dared to face against the unknown”).

Writers of nonfiction have regularly used the pronoun “we” in reference to themselves since the usage first appeared in Old English. The first OED example is from the Old English Orosius, a late 9th- or early 10th-century translation of Paulus Orosius’s Historiarum Adversum Pagano Libri VII (Seven Books of History Against the Pagans):

“Nu hæbbe we scortlice gesæd ymbe Asia londgemæro” (“Now we have briefly spoken about the boundaries of Asia”).

As for fiction, the earliest examples we’ve found are from the 18th century. We especially like this one from The History of Tom Jones (1749), a novel by Henry Fielding:

“As we do not disdain to borrow wit or wisdom from any man who is capable of lending us either, we have condescended to take a hint from these honest victuallers, and shall prefix not only a general bill of fare to our whole entertainment, but shall likewise give the reader particular bills to every course which is to be served up in this and the ensuing volumes.”

The earliest fiction example cited in the OED is from Charles Dickens’s Sketches by Boz (1836): “We shall never forget the mingled feelings of awe and respect, with which we used to gaze on the exterior of Newgate in our schoolboy days.”

And we found this example in The History of Pendennis (1848–50), by William Makepeace Thackeray: “Arthur was about sixteen years old, we have said, when he began to reign.”

The practice of referring to oneself in the plural is called “nosism.” The word comes from the Latin nos (“we”), so it literally means we-ism.

We wrote a post in 2011 about the history of the term as well as its usage, which in various senses is referred to as “the royal we,” “the editorial we,” “the authorial we,” “the corporate we,” and so on.

We also published a post in 2017 on the use of “we” in the sense of “you,” as in a nurse asking a patient, “How are we feeling today?” or a primary-school teacher telling a student, “Now we won’t talk in class, will we?” These practices are known as “the hospital we” and the “kindergarten we.”

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