Ethereal
adj, noun ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 Ellipsis of ethereal wave (“music genre”). abbreviation, alt-of, ellipsis, uncountable
- 1 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.
"Near-synonyms: aereous, celestial"
- 2 Pertaining to the immaterial realm, as symbolically represented by, or (in earlier epochs) conflated with, such atmospheric and extra-atmospheric concepts.
"Near-synonyms: celestial, incorporeal, insubstantial, intangible, spiritual, uncorporeal, mystical, otherworldly, transcendental; see also Thesaurus:cosmic"
- 3 Consisting of ether; hence, exceedingly light or airy; tenuous; spiritlike; characterized by extreme delicacy, as form, manner, thought, etc.
"Vaſt chain of being ! which from God began, / Ethereal Eſſence, Spirit, Subſtance, Man, / Beaſt, Bird, Fiſh, Inſect ! [...]"
- 1 characterized by lightness and insubstantiality; as impalpable or intangible as air wordnet
- 2 characterized by unusual lightness and delicacy wordnet
- 3 of heaven or the spirit wordnet
- 4 of or containing or dissolved in ether wordnet
Example
More examples"Debussy's Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun and the poem which it is based on share a dreamy, ethereal, but nonetheless passionate feel."
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.
Related phrases
More for "ethereal"
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.