Merriam-Webster puts it this way:
Venerate:
1: to regard with reverential respect or with admiring deference
2: to honor (as an icon or a relic) with a ritual act of devotion Mother Teresa was venerated for her work with the poor, even before she died (first sense); after she died and was named a "Blessed" she as venerated in the second sense, e.g. by ritual act.
In common parlance, we can be said to "venerate" loyalty, or courage, or literature. Philologically, "to venerate" derives from the Latin verb, venerare, meaning to regard with reverence and respect.
The Seventh Ecumenical Council (787) decreed that iconoclasm, i.e. forbidding icons and their veneration, is a heresy that amounts to a denial of the incarnation of Jesus.
There was certainly veneration before there was canonization!
If a theological distinction is made between "venerate" and "reverence," I don't think it would be absolute, but we might want to use a more general term term like proskynesis to cover the overall respect shown to saints and priests and relics and Pope and icons and sanctuaries and consecrated ground.
If a theological distinction is made between "venerate" and "reverence," I don't think it would be absolute
The Church makes a clear theological distinction between the terms. Again, see post #71.