antiphysical

Adjective

antiphysical (comparative more antiphysical, superlative most antiphysical)

1. Contrary to nature; unnatural;
   • According to all the laws of hydrostatics, the water which flows into a brewery should leave it through its drains. Its exit in barrels on drays is antiphysical.1908, Alex Hill, The Body at Work: A Treatise on the Principles of Physiology, page 206
   • Quaternionics was in its vectorial aspects antiphysical and unnatural, and did not harmonize with common scalar mathematics.1986, Vladimir Naumovich Zharkov, Interior Structure of the Earth and Planets, page 195
   1. (obsolete) Homosexual
      • She atchieved a transitory victory over the antiphysical appetites of the late king of Sweden, and for a time inspired him with a desire of natural pleasures;1794, Charles Pigott, The Female Jockey Club: Or a Sketch of the Manners of the Age, page 22
      • A violent animus against antiphysical passions makes him exaggerate these dangers, for it is clear that normal vice is no less free from sordid demoralisation and crimes of violence than its abnormal twin-brother.1896, John Addington Symonds, A Problem in Modern Ethics, page 18
2. Nonphysical; abstract, mental, intellectual, or spiritual.
   • This superannuated scholasticism has been generally called metaphysical from the order of Aristotle's works, but is more properly antiphysical.1888 December 8, Garrick Mallery, Philosophy and Specialties
   • It will be of some help to us in understanding de Rougemon't thesis if we have a clear sense of this romantic tradition with its curiously antiphysical understanding of sexual love and eros.2002, James Wm McClendon, Systematic Theology: Volume 1 - Volume 1, page 139
3. Repulsed by the physical.
   • The important works of Peter Brown, Carolyn Walker Bynum, and others have demonstrated that Christian asceticism is not necessarily antiphysical and misogynistic.2011, T. Cattoi, J. McDaniel, Perceiving the Divine through the Human Body
   • The rules of decency and modesty arose out of antiphysical repugnances to physical functions that seemed to humiliate human dignity.2013, Bampfylde Fuller, The Law Within, page 71