etherial
etherial is the archaic form of ethereal.
Meaning of ethereal
Adjective
ethereal (comparative more ethereal, superlative most ethereal)
- 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
- 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
- Synonyms:
- celestial, incorporeal, insubstantial, intangible, spiritual, uncorporeal, mystical, otherworldly, transcendental, cosmic
- 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 etherial
| comparative | more etherial |
|---|---|
| superlative | most etherial |
Origin of etherial
From ether + -ial.
Questions about etherial
- What is etherial the archaic form of?
- Etherial is the archaic form of ethereal.
Words near etherial in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: etherial (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: “etherial.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/etherial. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.