numinous
Syllables: nu·min·ous/ˈnjuːmɪnəs/US/ˈn(j)umənəs/
numinous adjective: of or relating to a numen (divinity); indicating the presence of a divinity.
Adjective
numinous (comparative more numinous, superlative most numinous)
- Of or relating to a numen (divinity); indicating the presence of a divinity.
- His interest in numinous objects led him on a quest for the Holy Grail.
- The fetish of Huitzilopochtli, bundled up and screened from profane eyes, now preceded the wandering group, carried on the back of his oracle-priest or sorcerer who alone was holy enough to handle safely the numinous object.1972, Burr Cartwright Brundage, “The Mexica Gain a King”, in A Rain of Darts: The Mexica Aztecs (Texas Pan American Series), Austin, Tx.; London: University of Texas Press, →ISBN, page 23
- Evoking a sense of the mystical, sublime, or transcendent; awe-inspiring.
- The Will of a King is very numinous; it hath a kind of vast universality in it, it is many times greater than the will of his whole Kingdom, stiffened with ill Counsel and ill Presidents: […]1647, Theodore de la Guard [pseudonym; Nathaniel Ward], The Simple Cobler of Aggawam in America. […], London: […] J[ohn] D[ever] & R[obert] I[bbitson] for Stephen Bowtell, […], →OCLC; The Simple...
- Behind the hieroglyphic streets there would either be a transcendent meaning, or only the earth. In the songs Miles, Dean, Serge and Leonard sang was either some fraction of the truth's numinous beauty (as Mucho now believed) or only a power spectrum.1966 March, Thomas Pynchon, chapter 6, in The Crying of Lot 49, New York, N.Y.: Bantam Books, published November 1976, →ISBN, page 136
- Synonyms:
- awesome, magical, mystical, mystic, sorcerous, sortilegious, thaumaturgic, witching
numinous meaning in Urdu and Malayalam
numinous in Urdu
- دیوتائی, روحانی
numinous in Malayalam
- spiritual, religious, divine
- ആത്മീയം, അദ്ധ്യാത്മികം, മതപരം, മതാത്മകം, ദിവ്യമായ, ദെെവികം
Examples of numinous in a sentence
- He held his own body in numinous esteem.1976 September, Saul Bellow, Humboldt’s Gift, New York, N.Y.: Avon Books, →ISBN, page 40:
- Is death closer than they think? [Samuel Langhorne] Clemens sets the scene with a numinous description of the men waiting in the corncrib in the "veiled moonlight."1996, Anne Bernays, “Introduction”, in Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], Merry Tales, New York, N.Y.; Oxford: Oxford...
- A post-scarcity communism that doesn't dispense with all thoughts of the divine and numinous can't be precluded.2022, China Miéville, chapter 4, in A Spectre, Haunting: On the Communist Manifesto, →OCLC:
Synonyms of numinous
Forms of numinous
| comparative | more numinous |
|---|---|
| superlative | most numinous |
Origin of numinous
From Latin nūmen (“nod of the head; divine sway or will; divinity”) + -ous (suffix forming adjectives from nouns, denoting possession or presence of a quality). Nūmen is believed to derive either from Latin *nuō (“to nod”) or from Ancient Greek νοούμενον (nooúmenon, “influence perceptible by the mind but not the senses”) (ultimately from νόος (nóos, “mind; thought; purpose”)).
Words formed from numinous
Questions about numinous
- What does numinous mean?
- Numinous means of or relating to a numen (divinity); indicating the presence of a divinity.
- What is numinous in Urdu?
- Numinous in Urdu is دیوتائی, روحانی. See Numinous meaning in Urdu.
- How do you use numinous in a sentence?
- He held his own body in numinous esteem.
- What part of speech is numinous?
- Numinous is an adjective.
- How do you pronounce numinous?
- Numinous is pronounced /ˈnjuːmɪnəs/ (UK).
Words near numinous in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: numinous (page history and authors); numinous (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); numinous (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). 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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-numinous.wav.
Cite this entry: “numinous.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/numinous. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.