Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The state of being sublime; that character or quality of anything which marks it as sublime: grandeur.
  • noun Loftiness of conception; exaltation of sentiment or style.
  • noun Grandeur; vastness; majesty, whether exhibited in the works of nature or of art: as, the sublimity of a scene or of a building.
  • noun That which is sublime; a sublime person or thing.
  • noun The highest degree of its highest quality of which anything is capable; climax; acme.
  • noun See the adjectives.
  • noun Synonyms See sublime.

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

  • noun The quality or state of being sublime (in any sense of the adjective).
  • noun That which is sublime.

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

  • noun uncountable The state of being sublime.
  • noun countable Something sublime.

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

  • noun nobility in thought or feeling or style

Etymologies

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Examples

  • That the ass, which in its very degradation still retains an under-power of sublimity, [Footnote: '_An under-power of sublimity_.'

    Narrative and Miscellaneous Papers — Volume 2 Thomas De Quincey 1822

  • That the ass, which in its very degradation still retains an under-power of sublimity, [Footnote: '_An under-power of sublimity_.'

    Narrative and Miscellaneous Papers Thomas De Quincey 1822

  • The sublimity is so overpowering as naturally to prompt the exclamation that if the divine steeds were to leap thus twice in succession they would pass beyond the confines of the world.

    On the Sublime Hal Duncan 2010

  • This modern form of sublimity is more complex than mere technophobia.

    Ballardian » Edward Burtynsky: Oil – A Ballardian Interpretation 2010

  • The sublimity is so overpowering as naturally to prompt the exclamation that if the divine steeds were to leap thus twice in succession they would pass beyond the confines of the world.

    Archive 2010-03-01 Hal Duncan 2010

  • The very sublimity is the cause of the difficulty of the style, and of the presence of peculiar expressions occurring, not found elsewhere.

    Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible 1871

  • In this volume religious sublimity is clothed in childlike simplicity.

    The Mother's Book 1831

  • Burnett — Author of The Theory of Earth [14] a book which equals Milton in sublimity, & which for ingenuity never perhaps was equalled.

    Letter 149 1792

  • The chief characteristic of Milton's poetry is its sublimity, which is the natural outcome of the magnificence of his conceptions and of his own pure imaginative genius.

    The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' Thomas Nathaniel Orchard

  • That sublimity, which is one manifestation of beauty, is of the spirit, and by the spirit it must be apprehended.

    The Enjoyment of Art Carleton Eldredge Noyes 1911

Comments

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  • there was a town called sublimity. . .

    September 24, 2007

  • Ooh! Is this the beginning of a story? :-)

    September 24, 2007

  • Or a limerick?

    September 24, 2007