Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Of or relating to metaphysics.
  • adjective Based on speculative or abstract reasoning.
  • adjective Immaterial or supernatural.
  • adjective 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.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • 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.

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

  • adjective Of or pertaining to metaphysics.
  • adjective According to rules or principles of metaphysics.
  • adjective obsolete Preternatural or supernatural.

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

  • adjective Of or pertaining to metaphysics.
  • adjective Immaterial, supersensual, not physical (more properly, "beyond" that which is physical).

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

  • adjective highly abstract and overly theoretical
  • adjective pertaining to or of the nature of metaphysics
  • adjective without material form or substance

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English metaphisicalle, from Medieval Latin metaphysicālis, from metaphysica, metaphysics; see metaphysics.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Grammatically derived from "metaphysics"

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Examples

  • The term metaphysical is used here to include anything in your life that has an inwardly energetic and invisible quality, such as:

    ChiWalking Katherine Dreyer 2006

  • The term metaphysical is used here to include anything in your life that has an inwardly energetic and invisible quality, such as:

    ChiWalking Katherine Dreyer 2006

  • The term metaphysical is used here to include anything in your life that has an inwardly energetic and invisible quality, such as:

    ChiWalking Katherine Dreyer 2006

  • The term metaphysical is used here to include anything in your life that has an inwardly energetic and invisible quality, such as:

    ChiWalking Katherine Dreyer 2006

  • In addition, the English word "metaphysical" is defined to mean something that is outside the realm of empirical verification.

    Antony Flew dies at 87 2010

  • In addition, the English word "metaphysical" is defined to mean something that is outside the realm of empirical verification.

    Antony Flew dies at 87 2010

  • 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.

    A History of Elizabethan Literature George Saintsbury 1889

  • There were, in truth, many such theories, and to some of them the term metaphysical, in M. Comte's sense, cannot justly be applied.

    Auguste Comte and Positivism John Stuart Mill 1839

  • 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.

    CreationWiki - Recent changes [en] 2010

  • He said the term metaphysical is often misunderstood and said it's about the power of the mind, not some strange spiritual practice.

    Local News from The Lakeland Ledger 2009

Comments

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  • Meta just about anything is cool.

    December 1, 2006