Word.ws English Dictionary

aetherial

aetherial is the alternative spelling of ethereal.

Meaning of ethereal

Adjective

ethereal (comparative more ethereal, superlative most ethereal)

  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
    Antonyms:
    earthly
  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 ! [...]1733, [Alexander Pope], An Essay on Man. […], epistle I, London: […] J[ohn] Wilford, […], →OCLC, page 14, lines 237–239

Forms of aetherial

comparativemore aetherial
superlativemost aetherial

Questions about aetherial

What is aetherial the alternative spelling of?
Aetherial is the alternative spelling of ethereal.

Words near aetherial in the dictionary

  1. aether wave
  2. aether waves
  3. aethereal
  4. aethered
  5. Aetheria
  6. aetherial
  7. aetherially
  8. aetheric
  9. aetherometric
  10. aetherometry
  11. aetherophone

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: aetherial (page history and authors); ethereal (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “aetherial.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/aetherial. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.