Word.ws English Dictionary

praeternatural

praeternatural is the alternative spelling of preternatural.

Meaning of preternatural

Adjective

preternatural (comparative more preternatural, superlative most preternatural)

  1. Beyond or not conforming to what is natural or according to the regular course of things; strange.
    • I have employed cold air, and very often spongings with cold water, in order to moderate the preternatural heat of the skin, and to check the increased velocity of the circulation.1815, William Shearman, New Medical and Physical Journal
  2. (dated) Having an existence outside the natural world.
    • Macbeth is like a record of a preternatural and tragical event.1817, William Hazlitt, “Macbeth”, in Characters of Shakespeare's Plays

Forms of praeternatural

comparativemore praeternatural
superlativemost praeternatural

Questions about praeternatural

What is praeternatural the alternative spelling of?
Praeternatural is the alternative spelling of preternatural.

Words near praeternatural in the dictionary

  1. praeteritios
  2. praetermit
  3. praetermits
  4. praetermitted
  5. praetermitting
  6. praeternatural
  7. praeternature
  8. praetexta
  9. praetor
  10. praetores
  11. praetoria

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: praeternatural (page history and authors); preternatural (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: “praeternatural.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/praeternatural. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.