ethereal
Part of speech: adj
Morphological type: simple
Etymology: From Latin aetherius (“of or pertaining to the ether, the sky, Heaven or the air or upper air”), from Ancient Greek αἰθέριος (aithérios, “of or pertaining to the upper air”). By surface analysis, ether + -ial.
Inflected forms:
form: more ethereal
pos: adj
tags: comparative
form: most ethereal
pos: adj
tags: superlative
form: aethereal
pos: adj
tags: alternative
form: aetherial
pos: adj
tags: alternative
form: æthereal
pos: adj
tags: alternative
archaic
form: ætherial
pos: adj
tags: alternative
archaic
form: æthereall
pos: adj
tags: alternative
obsolete
form: ætheriall
pos: adj
tags: alternative
obsolete
Senses:
gloss: Pertaining to the presupposition of an invisible air-like element permeating all of space, or to the higher regions beyond the earth or beyond the atmosphere.
pos: adj
examples: Near-synonyms: aereous, celestial
ethereal space
ethereal regions
Since to part, / Go heavenly Gueſt, Ethereal Meſſenger, / Sent from whoſe ſovran goodneſs I adore.
The fanciful fables of fairy land are but allegories of the young poet's mind when the sweet spell is upon him. Some slight thing calls up the visionary world, and all the outward and actual is for the time forgotten. It is a fever ethereal and lovely; but, like all other fevers, leaving behind weakness and exhaustion.
I trust that we shall be more imaginative, that our thoughts will be clearer, fresher, and more ethereal, as our sky,[…]
She was very young—at the most nineteen, with a pale somewhat refined face, yellow hair, merry blue eyes, and shining teeth. Her beauty was of an ethereal type.
Our visitors, upon the whole, were not much to boast of; and yet, sitting in a corner and very much ashamed of myself and my absurd appearance, I have again and again tasted the finest, the rarest, and the most ethereal pleasures in a glance of an eye that I should never see again—and never wanted to.
Virgil described the ethereal process as expanding itself through the universe, and giving life and motion to the inhabitants of earth, water, and air, by a participation of its own essence, each particle of which returned to its native source at the dissolution of the body which it animated.
gloss: Pertaining to the immaterial realm, as symbolically represented by, or (in earlier epochs) conflated with, such atmospheric and extra-atmospheric concepts.
pos: adj
examples: Near-synonyms: celestial, incorporeal, insubstantial, intangible, spiritual, uncorporeal, mystical, otherworldly, transcendental; see also Thesaurus:cosmic
Sure he preſum'd of praiſe, vvho came to ſtock / Th' etherial paſtures vvith ſo fair a flock; / Burniſh'd, and bat'ning on their food, to ſhovv / The diligence of carefull herds belovv.
gloss: Consisting of ether; hence, exceedingly light or airy; tenuous; spiritlike; characterized by extreme delicacy, as form, manner, thought, etc.
pos: adj
examples: Vaſt chain of being ! which from God began, / Ethereal Eſſence, Spirit, Subſtance, Man, / Beaſt, Bird, Fiſh, Inſect ! [...]
Strange mystery of our nature, that those in whom genius developes itself in imagination, thus taking its most ethereal form, should yet be the most dependent on the opinions of others!
He did not see[…]that already, in the incipiency of his work, the heavy unmalleable element of mere book-knowledge would not congenially weld with the wide fluidness and ethereal airiness of spontaneous creative thought.
The innocent if lawless elf, / Ethereal in virginity, / Retains the consciousness of self.
The hall, when emptied of its furniture, brilliantly lit, adorned with flowers whose scent tinged the air, presented a wonderful appearance of ethereal gaiety.
Close to the border with Eritrea, its ethereal, Martian landscape sits within the Danakil Depression.
Derived words: electroethereal
etherealisation
etherealise
etherealism
ethereality
etherealization
etherealize
etherealizing
ethereally
etherealness
ethereal wave
metethereal
nonethereal
unethereal
Translations: