unearthly

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It was unearthly, angelic; but it was also very fleeting.

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Definitions (7)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (3)

  1. adjective Not of this earth; preternatural; supernatural.
  2. adjective Unnaturally strange and frightening. See Synonyms at weird.
  3. adjective Ridiculously unreasonable or uncustomary; absurd: called me at an unearthly hour.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (1)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (2)

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Examples (50)

  • The stuff they did with those pipes was unearthly, all right, but some of it was powerfully evocative to human ears. —  BEN BOVA Editor
  • Their lives are changed the night that Jimmy's SETI watch produces unearthly -- literally -- music; an alien symphony from a distant planet. —  EBSCOhost
  • Then he lunged upon the other two So unearthly was the agility with which Doc moved, that the surviving pair seemed unutterably clumsy. —  015 - The Mystery On The Snow
  • The moment I took her I was struck by her unearthly, absolutely angelic expression; and, not having strength enough to help it, burst out crying bitterly, and cried all the afternoon while I was struggling to give her up. —  The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss
  • Accoring to published accounts, Brazel and young Proctor stumbled across something unearthly--a field of tattered debris two to three hundred yards wide stretching some three-quarters of a mile in length. —  Omni: April 1994
 

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This word has been looked up 79 times.

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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

eerie ·  ghostly ·  ethereal ·  indescribable ·  weird ·  ghastly ·  celestial ·  mournful ·  ominous ·  supernatural ·  dazzle ·  inhuman
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
 

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/ənˈərθli/
by American Heritage

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