Ethereal
WordNet
adjective
(1) Characterized by lightness and insubstantiality; as impalpable or intangible as air
"Figures light and aeriform come unlooked for and melt away"- Thomas Carlyle
"Aerial fancies"
"An airy apparition"
"Physical rather than ethereal forms"
(2) Characterized by unusual lightness and delicacy
"This smallest and most ethereal of birds"
"Gossamer shading through his playing"
(3) Of heaven or the spirit
"Celestial peace"
"Ethereal melodies"
"The supernal happiness of a quiet death"
(4) Of or containing or dissolved in ether
"Ethereal solution"
WiktionaryText
Etymology
From , from .
Adjective
- Pertaining to the hypothetical upper, purer air, or to the higher regions beyond the earth or beyond the atmosphere; celestial; otherworldly; as, ethereal space; ethereal regions.
- Consisting of ether; hence, exceedingly light or airy; tenuous; spiritlike; characterized by extreme delicacy, as form, manner, thought, etc.
- 1733: Pope, An Essay on Man
- Vast chain of being, which from God began, Natures ethereal, human, angel, man.
- 1733: Pope, An Essay on Man
- Delicate, light and airy.