Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Of or relating to metaphysics.
- adj. Based on speculative or abstract reasoning.
- adj. Highly abstract or theoretical; abstruse.
- adj. Immaterial; incorporeal. See Synonyms at immaterial.
- adj. Supernatural.
- adj. Of or relating to the poetry of a group of 17th-century English poets whose verse is characterized by an intellectually challenging style and extended metaphors comparing very dissimilar things.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Of or pertaining to metaphysic or metaphysics; in a loose sense, philosophical; hence, highly abstruse; apart from ordinary or practical modes of thought.
- Relating to real being, and not merely to appearance; transcendental; hence, pertaining to unverifiable hypotheses.
- Pertaining to abstractions, or modes thought of as objects, and named as if they were things; abstract.
- Preternatural or supernatural.
- A whole of comprehension, or a logical term conceived as compounded of its predicates.
- A whole of comprehension in a more general sense; a natural whole; any whole in which the subject is viewed as the whole of which the predicates are parts.
Wiktionary
- adj. Of or pertaining to metaphysics.
- adj. Immaterial, supersensual, not physical (more properly, "beyond" that which is physical).
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Of or pertaining to metaphysics.
- adj. According to rules or principles of metaphysics.
- adj. obsolete Preternatural or supernatural.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. highly abstract and overly theoretical
- adj. pertaining to or of the nature of metaphysics
- adj. without material form or substance
Etymologies
- Grammatically derived from "metaphysics" (Wiktionary)
- Middle English metaphisicalle, from Medieval Latin metaphysicālis, from metaphysica, metaphysics; see metaphysics. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The term metaphysical is used here to include anything in your life that has an inwardly energetic and invisible quality, such as:”
“In addition, the English word "metaphysical" is defined to mean something that is outside the realm of empirical verification.”
“The term metaphysical, originating with Dryden, and used by Johnson with a slight difference, may be easily miscomprehended by any one who chooses to forget its legitimate application both etymologically and by usage to that which comes, as it were, behind or after nature.”
“There were, in truth, many such theories, and to some of them the term metaphysical, in M. Comte's sense, cannot justly be applied.”
“In practice the use of the term metaphysical naturalism reduces to the more specific ontological view of scientific naturalism, because science is dependent upon naturalism in order to be able to done.”
“He said the term metaphysical is often misunderstood and said it's about the power of the mind, not some strange spiritual practice.”
“Ms. Atwood traces a heritage for sci-fi broad enough to include the "traveler's tales" of Herodotus, "scientific romances" like Edward Bellamy's "Looking Backward" and what she calls the "metaphysical romance" of Aldous Huxley.”
“One student, Stacy, was struggling with what she referred to as a metaphysical “thorn” in her foot.”
“I know the common meanings; ie, the metaphysical is that which cannot in principle be subject to emperical testing; or that the metaphysical is the domain of ultimate ontology and causation; or indeed, that the metaphysical is simply the meta theory of physics.”
“In his book Small Is Beautiful, E.F Schumacher emphasises very strongly that the most important task for our times is not so much an economic reconstruction, although this is vital and necessary, but what he calls a metaphysical reconstruction or a religious reconstruction-looking deeper into our philosophical and metaphysical foundations and seeing what has gone wrong.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘metaphysical’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
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PHIL - vocabulary of thinking
philosophy, Socratic, dialogue, philosopher, Athenian, philosophical, politic, Greek, method, death, ancient, believe and 243 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11250 more...
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GRE 2014
abase, abate, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abjure, abortive, abound, abrasive, abreast, abridge and 1577 more...
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Naresh_Gre2
convoke, cosset, coterie, declaim, distaff, doff, dovetail, droll, dyspeptic, egress, ersatz, euphemism and 108 more...
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philosophical adjectives
Common and not-so-common adjectives found while studying philosophy.
dialectic, ontological, logical, theological, empirical, moral, ethical, metaphysical, atheistic, synthetic, monistic, dualistic and 13 more...
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Filter 1
Hard words level 1
besotted, altricial, consecrate, consternate, desuetude, detractor, dissolute, divisive, emaciated, enamored, ensconce, garishly and 76 more...
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five syllables
ontogenesis, phylogenesis, concatenation, androgenesis, extra textual, inexorably, spagyrically, apophenia, iatrochemist, monocotyloid, morphological, parthenogenic and 998 more...
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lavendargrrl's Words
surfeit, radiant, sussuration, sustenance, authenticity, aching, solitude, solicitous, limerance, compersion, philanthropy, mystery and 108 more...
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Words I Know
List of most of the words I've learned
garner, abase, abate, abdicate, abduct, aberration, abet, abhor, abide, abject, abjure, abnegation and 1046 more...
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eggplantia5's Words
scintillate, marvel, cranberry, oscillate, triumph, bamboozle, grimace, magical, book, hexagon, cipher, compendium and 2727 more...
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SoSheShall's list
slurp, coeur, slurple, glop, perp, fluarxx, ropechno, herrherr, burrduhherrherr, sloppy, cheezie balls, eccentric and 634 more...
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zzyyxx's Words
plethora, drout, functional, rye, wring, doubt, cognative, weird, gnaw, surcease, rend, languish and 438 more...
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emotions or mental states
beyond the basics
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junemoonchild's Favorite Words
Aubrey, astrology, Cancer, Taurus, dybbuk, enchantress, love, mystery, mysteriarch, spirit, melancholy, disintegration and 129 more...
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Favorite Words
quixotic, assonance, palindrome, plebeian, mezzanine, propinquity, etymology, antihero, intrepid, refractions, lawless, sesquipedalian and 237 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for metaphysical.
siguy Meta just about anything is cool. Nov 30, 2006