ETHEREAL

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does ethereal mean? 

• ETHEREAL (adjective)
  The adjective ETHEREAL has 4 senses:

1. characterized by lightness and insubstantiality; as impalpable or intangible as air

2. of or containing or dissolved in ether

3. of heaven or the spirit

4. characterized by unusual lightness and delicacy

  Familiarity information: ETHEREAL used as an adjective is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ETHEREAL (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Characterized by lightness and insubstantiality; as impalpable or intangible as air

Synonyms:

aerial; aeriform; aery; airy; ethereal

Context example:

physical rather than ethereal forms

Similar:

insubstantial; unreal; unsubstantial (lacking material form or substance; unreal)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Of or containing or dissolved in ether

Classified under:

Relational adjectives (pertainyms)

Context example:

ethereal solution

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)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Of heaven or the spirit

Synonyms:

celestial; ethereal; supernal

Context example:

the supernal happiness of a quiet death

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:

Characterized by unusual lightness and delicacy

Synonyms:

ethereal; gossamer

Context example:

gossamer shading through his playing

Similar:

delicate (exquisitely fine and subtle and pleasing; susceptible to injury)

 Context examples 

It seemed to him that he had never seen Ruth more beautiful, more spiritual and ethereal and at the same time more healthy.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

She was like a feather in my arms, so slender, so ethereal.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Miss Morrison is a little, ethereal slip of a girl, with timid eyes and blonde hair, but I found her by no means wanting in shrewdness and common sense.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

A clear, colorless, flammable liquid cyclic ether with an ethereal odor.

(Furan, NCI Thesaurus)

A colorless, flammable, carcinogenic, chlorinated hydrocarbon with a pungent, ethereal odor.

(Chloroprene, NCI Thesaurus)

So transformed and so ethereal was her expression, that Alleyne, in his loftiest dream of archangel or of seraph, had never pictured so sweet, so womanly, and yet so wise a face.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

But whether the sorrow was too vast to be embodied in music, or music too ethereal to uplift a mortal woe, he soon discovered that the Requiem was beyond him just at present.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

It was an idealized Ruth he had loved, an ethereal creature of his own creating, the bright and luminous spirit of his love-poems.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

She was a delicate, ethereal creature, swaying and willowy, light and graceful of movement.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Imagine her dismay, on stealing a glance of timid admiration at the poet whose lines suggested an ethereal being fed on 'spirit, fire, and dew', to behold him devouring his supper with an ardor which flushed his intellectual countenance.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)