Yes, but 'rend hommage' would take up more space in a headline.

I thought I'd check my dictionaries to see what definition they give for "honorer" in this context.

The Larousse monolingual French dictionary I have on CD-ROM did not mention this particular meaning, and nor did my Harraps bilingual dictionary. But Robert-Collins gives this definition: "honorer sa femme: to fulfil one's conjugal duties" but it's noted that the term is old-fashioned, or else used humorously.

PS Florence, je suis tout à fait d'accord - la langue française me réserve au moins une surprise par jour! (les joies du métier de la traduction...)

Jenviolin, while waiting for the metro at the Champs Elysees-Clemenceau stop today, I read the sign explaining the station's name. In part, it said the station would design to "honore" Clemenceau (and they had plenty of room to write "rend hommage&quot.
It would be a shame for a perfectly good, succinct, useful word to be consigned to the scrap heap simply because of an old-fashioned, obscure, rarely used alternate meaning.
We all say that we know someone, it's a common phrase, we wouldn't avoid using that phrase simply because of the seconday Biblical sense.

honorer, might also mean to commemorate
which would be why they would use the verb honorer in the case of naming a metro station , in honor of Monsieur Clemenceau,
usually a tribute when used in that context.

hanl, what do you think:

honorer nos héros de guerre OR

rendre honneur à nos héros de guerre,

which one is better.....
(to honor our war heros.)....

Bonjour Mitch,

Definitely "rendre honneur à nos héros" ...

Bonjour Btilke,

The "naughty" meaning of honorer is not so out of fashion. Proof is that 2 persons thought it was better to warn Rick about it ;-)

There is no risk of double meaning if you speak about honoring a war hero, or if you write "j'honore mes parents", but someone who doesn't know who the watch comes from, and from what context, could make a tasteless joke.

Sorry, I don't agree. "honore" appears in its traditional sense in newspapers, books, museums, etc. To dump the word because of a secondary, shady meaning that even the dictionary calls "old fashioned" is pushing the envelope.
How many times have I heard parents say, in describing something their kids would have done, "I KNOW my own children." Are we all supposed to start snickering about incest?
Petty, tasteless/filthy minds can find a double meaning in almost anything.
"honorer" is a perfectly acceptable verb.