Preternatural
WordNet
adjective
(1) Existing outside of or not in accordance with nature
"Find transcendental motives for sublunary action"-Aldous Huxley
(2) Surpassing the ordinary or normal
"Beyond his preternatural affability there is some acid andsome steel"- George Will
"His uncanny sense of direction"
WiktionaryText
Etymology
From / from from + .
Adjective
- Beyond or different from what is natural or according to the regular course of things; strange; inexplicable; extraordinary; abnormal.
- 1882, George Edward Ellis, The Red Man and the White Man in North America, p. 152,
- Doubtless there has been some exaggeration in the picturesque and fanciful relations of the almost preternatural skill and cunning of the Indian, [...]
- 1882, George Edward Ellis, The Red Man and the White Man in North America, p. 152,
- Having an existence outside of the natural world. In this sense, everything supernatural is also preternatural.
- 1817, William Hazlitt, Characters of Shakespeare's Plays, "Macbeth",
- Macbeth is like a record of a preternatural and tragical event.
- 1860, George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss, Book 1, Chapter 11,
- Not Leonore, in that preternatural midnight excursion with her phantom lover, was more terrified than poor Maggie in this entirely natural ride on a short-paced donkey, [...]
- 1925, Arthur Conan Doyle, "The Ring of Thoth",
- Vansittart Smith, fixing his eyes upon the fellow's skin, was conscious of a sudden impression that there was something inhuman and preternatural about its appearance.
- 1817, William Hazlitt, Characters of Shakespeare's Plays, "Macbeth",