Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The highest reaches of heaven, believed by the ancients to be a realm of pure fire or light.
  • noun The abode of God and the angels; paradise.
  • noun The sky.
  • adjective Of or relating to the empyrean of ancient belief.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Empyreal; celestially refined.
  • noun The region of pure light and fire; the highest heaven, where the pure element of fire was supposed by the ancients to exist: the same as the ether, the ninth heaven according to ancient astronomy.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The highest heaven, where the pure element of fire was supposed by the ancients to subsist.
  • adjective Empyreal.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The region of pure light and fire; the highest heaven, where the pure element of fire was supposed by the ancients to exist: the same as the ether, the ninth heaven according to ancient astronomy.
  • adjective of the sky or the heavens; celestially refined

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective inspiring awe
  • noun the apparent surface of the imaginary sphere on which celestial bodies appear to be projected
  • adjective of or relating to the sky or heavens

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From Medieval Latin empyreum, from empyreus, empyreal; see empyreal.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin empȳreus, from Ancient Greek ἔμπυρος (empyros), from ἐν (en, "in") + πῦρ (pyr, "fire") (English pyre).

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Examples

Comments

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  • Citation on incorrigibly.

    June 22, 2008

  • “The autochthons say that their cattle can speak but do not, knowing that to speak is to call up demons, all our words being only curses in the tongue of the empyrean.”

    —Gene Wolfe, The Urth of the New Sun

    October 1, 2008