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 theheavens ; 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 Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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The empyrean is the central castle where the emperor (God) sits enthroned.
Dictionary of the History of Ideas ARMAND MAURER 1968
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From the ninth sphere to the empyrean, which is mere light.
Paradise. Canto XXX 1909
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Supreme power, the beetle that folds his wings, that rests in the empyrean, that is born as his own son.
Egyptian Literature Comprising Egyptian tales, hymns, litanies, invocations, the Book of the Dead, and cuneiform writings Epiphanius Wilson 1880
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From the ninth sphere to the empyrean, which is more light.v. 44.
Divine Comedy, Cary's Translation, Complete 1265-1321 Dante Alighieri 1293
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643 One of the halls of the empyrean, which is here personified as a goddess.
Egyptian Literature Comprising Egyptian tales, hymns, litanies, invocations, the Book of the Dead, and cuneiform writings Epiphanius Wilson 1880
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In the afternoon the wind strengthened after four days of calm and the goldens enjoyed it, rising into the empyrean until they seemed to dissolve in blue.
Bird Cloud Annie Proulx 2011
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This is perhaps where most readers depart company with Bloom, concluding that his kind of reading is finally an idiosyncratic and insular one, Bloom himself seated aloft in his own peculiar aesthetic empyrean.
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For $3.7 million, you, too, can sit in this singular creation, gaze out at the magnificent sunsets, watch eagles wheel against the bright blue empyrean, pit yourself against the bellowing 74-mile-an-hour winds, the arctic snows, the unforgiving landscape.
Undone by a house of dreams Marie Arana 2011
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The building itself, like the bell-ringing ceremonies inside, or indeed the activity on the hallowed floor itself, has been abstracted away from its original purpose and into the metaphysical empyrean of Higher Marketing: as much image as reality.
Robert Teitelman: St. Patrick's Day as a Derivative Instrument Robert Teitelman 2011
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The building itself, like the bell-ringing ceremonies inside, or indeed the activity on the hallowed floor itself, has been abstracted away from its original purpose and into the metaphysical empyrean of Higher Marketing: as much image as reality.
Robert Teitelman: St. Patrick's Day as a Derivative Instrument Robert Teitelman 2011
yarb commented on the word empyrean
Citation on incorrigibly.
June 22, 2008
Telofy commented on the word empyrean
“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