different between terrene vs contraterrene

English

Etymology 1

From Middle English terrene, from Anglo-Norman terriene, feminine of terrien, from Latin terr?nus, from terra (“earth”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /t???i?n/, /t???i?n/
• Rhymes: -i?n

Adjective

terrene (comparative more terrene, superlative most terrene)

1. Pertaining to the earth; earthly, terrestrial, worldly, as opposed to heavenly, marine.

   • God set before him a mortal and immortal life, a nature celestial and terrene.

   • 1888, Henry James, The Patagonia.

     One had never thought of the sea as the great place of safety, but now it came over one that there is no place so safe from the land. When it does not give you trouble it takes it away—takes away letters and telegrams and newspapers and visits and duties and efforts, all the complications, all the superfluities and superstitions that we have stuffed into our terrene life.

   • 1922, James Joyce, Ulysses:

     Arius, warring his life long upon the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father, and Valentine, spurning Christ’s terrene body, and the subtle African heresiarch Sabellius who held that the Father was Himself His own Son.

   • 1974, Guy Davenport, Tatlin!:

     For the earth was both celestial and terrene, the down here and the up there.

Derived terms

• subterrene
• superterrene

Related terms

Noun

terrene

1. (poetic) The Earth's surface; the earth; the ground.

Etymology 2

Noun

terrene (plural terrenes)

1. Dated form of tureen.
   • March 27, 1760, Horace Walpole, letter to George Montagu Esq.

     Execrable varnished pictures, chests, cabinets, commodes, tables, stands, boxes, riding on one another's backs, and loaded with terrenes, filligree, figures, and everything upon earth

Anagrams

• enterer, re-enter, re-entre, reenter, reentre, reënter, terreen

Italian

Adjective

terrene f pl

1. feminine plural of terreno

Latin

Adjective

terr?ne

1. vocative masculine singular of terr?nus

English

Alternative forms

• contra-terrene
• contra terrene

Etymology

• contra- +? terrene
• Physics meaning from physicist Dirac's notion that an ordinary electron “rests” on the Dirac sea (terrene) whereas a positron exists as a “hole” in that sea (contra-terrene).

Adjective

contraterrene (comparative more contraterrene, superlative most contraterrene)

1. Not terrestrial.
2. (obsolete, physics) Of or pertaining to antimatter.

References

• OED 2nd edition 1989