Word.ws English Dictionary

from on high

from on high prepositional phrase: from Heaven, from above.

Prepositional phrase

  1. From Heaven, from above.
    • Through the tender mercy of our God, whereby the day-spring from on high hath visited vs,1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Luke 1:78
    • Can we whose souls are lighted
      With Wisdom from on high,
      Can we to men benighted
      The lamp of life deny?1819, Reginald Heber, The Missionary Hymn
  2. From people with power or authority.
    • For the rest, that the Manchester Insurrection could yet discern no radiance of Heaven on any side of its horizon; but feared that all lights, of the O’Connor or other sorts, hitherto kindled, where but deceptive fish-oil transparencies, or bog will-o’-wisp lights, and no dayspring from on high...1843 April, Thomas Carlyle, “chapter 3 (Manchester Insurrection)”, in Past and Present, American edition, Boston, Mass.: Charles C[offin] Little and James Brown, published 1843, →OCLC, book I (Proem)
    • The whole point of America is that we are all supposed to be our own masters, never viewing anyone as being by birth or situation inherently better or more capable than ourselves, and so the notion of relying upon some nebulous class of investment bankers to “channel opportunity” from on high...2010 January 27, Matt Taibbi, “Populism: Just Like Racism!”, in True/Slant, archived from the original on 19 Jan 2013

Questions about from on high

What does from on high mean?
From on high means from Heaven, from above.
What part of speech is from on high?
From on high is a prepositional phrase.

Words near from on high in the dictionary

  1. from my cold, dead hands
  2. from now on
  3. from nowhere
  4. from off
  5. from off of
  6. from on high
  7. from one day to the next
  8. from pillar to post
  9. from post to pillar
  10. from scratch
  11. from sea to shining sea

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: from on high (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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