Etymology From Middle English pilgrimage. By surface analysis, pilgrim + -age.
1
A journey made to a sacred place, or a religious journey.
In the Muslim faith, the pilgrimage to Mecca is known as the Hajj.
Rome, the mighty mother of the Christian faith, whose amphitheatres had been red with the blood of the saints, and where the pilgrimage and the miracle still testified to the truth.1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XVII, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 187:
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It was like a weary pilgrimage amongst hints for nightmares.1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part I, page 204:
Quarians are surgically fitted with their various immunity-boosted implants in preparation for leaving on Pilgrimage.2008, BioWare, Mass Effect (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: Quarians: Pilgrimage Codex entry:
2
Broadly A visit to any site revered or associated with a meaningful event.
Each year we made a pilgrimage to New York City to visit the pub where we all first met.
The Berghof, too, was largely reduced to ash, sparing it the indignity of the tour guides Hitler so dreaded, and leaving a place of pilgrimage for future generations of Hitler worshippers—exactly how Adolf Hitler would have wanted it.2005 April 23, Timothy W. Ryback, “The Hitler Shrine”, in The Atlantic, →ISSN:
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For fans, the shows are a pilgrimage, and a rediscovery of the joys of mass gatherings.2023 August 5, Ben Sisario, “How Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour Conquered the World”, in New York Times:
Earlier this year, the resident was granted permission to install a gate to deter them from making what has become a sort of pilgrimage [Carrie Bradshaw's stoop].2025 May 5, Brock Colyar, “It Must Be Nice to Be a West Village Girl”, in New York, archived from the original on 19 May 2025:
Etymology From Middle English pilgrimage. By surface analysis, pilgrim + -age.
1
To go on a pilgrimage.
in descent, as now, he always had a holy sense of having pilgerimaged, of returning having seen behind a veil.2023, Eleanor Catton, Birnam Wood, page 78: