different between seraphic vs empyrean

English

Alternative forms

• seraphical (archaic)
• seraphicall (obsolete)

Etymology

From Medieval Latin seraphicus, from Late Latin seraph?m, seraph?n, from Hebrew ??????? (saráf, “seraph”). Surface etymology seraph +? -ic.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /s???æf.?k/
• Rhymes: -æf?k
• Hyphenation: se?raf?ic

Adjective

seraphic (comparative more seraphic, superlative most seraphic)

1. Of or relating to a seraph or the seraphim.

   the Seraphic Doctor, title given to the Italian medieval theologian Bonaventure

   • 1739, John Wesley, “God’s Greatness”, in Hymns and Sacred Poems, 4th edition, Bristol: Felix Farley (1743), page 108:

     Ye Ho?ts that to his Courts belong, / Cherubic Quires, Seraphic Flames, / Awake the everla?ting Song.

2. Pure and sublime; angelic.
   • 1684, Aphra Behn, Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister, London: Randal Taylor, pp. 90-91,^[1]

     A thousand times he was like to have denyed all, but durst not defame the most sacred Idol of his Soul: Sometimes he thought his Uncle would be generous, and think it fit to give him Silvia; but that Thought was too Seraphick to remain a Moment in his Heart.

   • 1782, Thomas Pennant, The Journey from Chester to London, London: B. White, Part 2, p. 407,^[2]

     Their passion seems to have been of the seraphic kind. She devoted herself to religion, and persuaded him to do the same.

   • 1864, Robert Browning, “Gold Hair” in Dramatis Personæ, London: Chapman & Hall, p. 27,^[3]

     Too white, for the flower of life is red;
     Her flesh was the soft, seraphic screen
     Of a soul that is meant (her parents said)
     To just see earth, and hardly be seen,
     And blossom in Heaven instead.

   • 1958, T. H. White, The Once and Future King, London: Collins, 1959, Chapter 5,^[4]

     She had a seraphic smile on her face.

   • 2012, Paul Lester, “Schoolboy Q (No 1,193),” The Guardian, 25 January, 2012,^[5]

     So instead of Tesfaye’s seraphic warble, Hanley offers earthier, gruffer tones: you get the impression, considering the casual sexism and more conventional machismo on display here, that the rarefied, stylised and feminised would be unacceptable in his world.

Translations

Anagrams

• aspheric, charpies, parchesi, sphæric

English

Etymology

From Latin emp?reus, from Ancient Greek ???????? (empúrios), from ?? (en, “in”) + ??? (pûr, “fire”) (whence English pyre).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?m?pa???i?n?/, /?m?p??i.?n/

Noun

empyrean (plural empyreans)

1. (historical) 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.

Related terms

• pyre

Adjective

empyrean (not comparable)

1. Of the sky or the heavens; celestially refined.
   • 1700, Matthew Prior, Carmen Saeculare

     Yet upward she [the goddess] incessant flies;
     Resolv’d to reach the high empyrean Sphere.

Synonyms

• empyreal

Translations

References

• empyrean in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• William Dwight Whitney and Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1914) , “empyrean”, in The Century Dictionary: An Encyclopedic Lexicon of the English Language, volume II (D–Hoon), revised edition, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., OCLC 1078064371.

Further reading

• empyrean on Wikipedia.Wikipedia