Word.ws English Dictionary

unearthliest

unearthliest is the superlative form of unearthly.

Meaning of unearthly

Adjective

unearthly (comparative unearthlier, superlative unearthliest)

  1. Not of the earth; nonterrestrial.
    • They were, I now saw, the most unearthly creatures it is possible to conceive.1898, H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds, London: William Heinemann, page 205
  2. (figuratively) Preternatural or supernatural.
    • I believe that we are the last human beings who will ever see that unearthly sight.1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC
  3. (figuratively) Strange, enigmatic, or mysterious.
    • I then set out to survey the town in the self-same palankeen. The houses had all of them an unearthly appearance, by no means consonant to our ideas of Oriental splendor.1819, [publ. Sep 1858], James Morton, “The Poetical Remains of the late Dr. John Leyden, with Memoirs of his Life”, in The Calcutta Review, volume 31, page 25
  4. (figuratively) Ideal beyond the mundane.
    • By the late sixteenth century Elizabeth had become the icon-like Virgin Queen of legend, an image created, to a large extent, by her extraordinary, unearthly costume and appearance.2000, Aileen Ribeiro, The Gallery of Fashion, page 42
  5. (derogatory, figuratively) Ridiculous, ludicrous, or outrageous.
    • I see my boys all wearing the same unearthly trousers, the same hair cuts, garish ties and sweaters, all rolling their socks and entertaining the same crazy notions about everything.1927, The Walther League Messenger, volume 36, page 225

Questions about unearthliest

What is unearthliest the superlative form of?
Unearthliest is the superlative form of unearthly.

Words near unearthliest in the dictionary

  1. unearther
  2. unearthers
  3. unearthing
  4. unearthings
  5. unearthlier
  6. unearthliest
  7. unearthliness
  8. unearthlinesses
  9. unearthly
  10. unearths
  11. unease

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: unearthliest (page history and authors); unearthly (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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