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ETHEREAL
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Characterized by lightness and insubstantiality; as impalpable or intangible as air
Example:
physical rather than ethereal forms
Synonyms:
aerial; aeriform; aery; airy; ethereal
Classified under:
Similar:
insubstantial; unreal; unsubstantial (lacking material form or substance; unreal)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Characterized by unusual lightness and delicacy
Example:
gossamer shading through his playing
Synonyms:
ethereal; gossamer
Classified under:
Similar:
delicate (exquisitely fine and subtle and pleasing; susceptible to injury)
Sense 3
Meaning:
Of heaven or the spirit
Example:
the supernal happiness of a quiet death
Synonyms:
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
heavenly (of or belonging to heaven or god)
Derivation:
ether (the fifth and highest element after air and earth and fire and water; was believed to be the substance composing all heavenly bodies)
Sense 4
Meaning:
Of or containing or dissolved in ether
Example:
ethereal solution
Classified under:
Relational adjectives (pertainyms)
Domain category:
chemical science; chemistry (the science of matter; the branch of the natural sciences dealing with the composition of substances and their properties and reactions)
Pertainym:
ether (a colorless volatile highly flammable liquid formerly used as an inhalation anesthetic)
Derivation:
ether (a colorless volatile highly flammable liquid formerly used as an inhalation anesthetic)
ether (any of a class of organic compounds that have two hydrocarbon groups linked by an oxygen atom)
Context examples:
She was a pale, ethereal creature, with wide, spiritual blue eyes and a wealth of golden hair.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
Her idea of love was more that of placid affection, serving the loved one softly in an atmosphere, flower-scented and dim-lighted, of ethereal calm.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
Under her purity, and saintliness, and culture, and ethereal beauty of soul, she was, in things fundamentally human, just like Lizzie Connolly and all Lizzie Connollys.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
Then the wheels of memory slipped ahead through four years of time, and he was aware of the present, of the books he had opened and the universe he had won from their pages, of his dreams and ambitions, and of his love for a pale wraith of a girl, sensitive and sheltered and ethereal, who would die of horror did she witness but one moment of what he had just lived through—one moment of all the muck of life through which he had waded.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
He was smiling to himself as he looked up into her virginal face, so innocent, so penetratingly innocent, that its purity seemed always to enter into him, driving out of him all dross and bathing him in some ethereal effulgence that was as cool and soft and velvety as starshine.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
