Definitions

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

  • adjective Surpassing what is normal or usual; extraordinary.
  • adjective Transcending the natural or material order; supernatural.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Being beyond what is natural, or different from what is natural; extraordinary: being out of the regular or natural course of things: distinguished from supernatural, being above nature, and unnatural, being contrary to nature.
  • Synonyms Miraculous, etc. See supernatural.

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

  • adjective Beyond of different from what is natural, or according to the regular course of things, but not clearly supernatural or miraculous; strange; inexplicable; extraordinary; uncommon; irregular; abnormal

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

  • adjective Beyond or different from what is natural or according to the regular course of things; strange; inexplicable; extraordinary; abnormal.
  • adjective dated Having an existence outside of the natural world. In this sense, everything supernatural is also preternatural.

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

  • adjective surpassing the ordinary or normal
  • adjective existing outside of or not in accordance with nature

Etymologies

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

[Medieval Latin praeternātūrālis, from Latin praeter nātūrām, beyond nature : praeter, beyond; see preterite + nātūra, nature; see nature.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin preternaturalis/praeternaturalis, from praeter nātūram, from praeter ("beyond") + nātūra ("nature").

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Examples

  • Conning back for these posts, it was no longer a stream, but more of a river of humanity, with everyone in preternatural good cheer.

    At Invesco Now... 2008

  • Conning back for these posts, it was no longer a stream, but more of a river of humanity, with everyone in preternatural good cheer.

    Archive 2008-08-01 2008

  • Following up on a halloween coversation about ghosts, most people don't know the word preternatural--often incorrectly using the word supernatural ("above nature") when they mean preternatural ("beyond nature").

    Supernatural or preternatural? Fr Timothy Matkin 2006

  • Following up on a halloween coversation about ghosts, most people don't know the word preternatural--often incorrectly using the word supernatural ("above nature") when they mean preternatural ("beyond nature").

    Archive 2006-11-01 Fr Timothy Matkin 2006

  • His upper jaw was furnished with two long white sharp-pointed teeth or fangs, such as the reader may have observed in the chaps of a wolf, or full-grown mastiff, and an anatomist would describe as a preternatural elongation of the dentes canini.

    The Life and Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves 2004

  • Philo's writings, Jewish demonology was propagated among Christian converts, and the Gnostics quickly absorbed and spread the notion of preternatural interposition.

    Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing George Barton Cutten

  • [49] By occultism is meant the belief in, and the claim to be able to use, a certain range of forces neither natural, nor, technically, supernatural, but more properly to be called preternatural -- often, though by no means always, for evil or selfish ends.

    The Builders A Story and Study of Masonry Joseph Fort Newton 1913

  • There are also secret societies which guard what may be called the preternatural tradition of the tribe, and deduce therefrom the decisions to be arrived at.

    The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 1: Aachen-Assize 1840-1916 1913

  • His upper jaw was furnished with two long white sharp-pointed teeth or fangs, such as the reader may have observed in the chaps of a wolf, or full-grown mastiff, and an anatomist would describe as a preternatural elongation of the dentes canini.

    The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves Tobias George Smollett 1746

  • The popular imagination seems to buy into a mythic understanding of Apple — that Steve Jobs has some kind of preternatural design compass embedded in his brain stem.

    inkblurt · Strategy and Innovation: Strange Bedfellows 2008

Comments

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  • If I don't lose control

    Explore and not explode

    A preternatural other plane

    With the power to maintain

    October 18, 2007

  • Word used in Chapter 23 of Ron Chernow's biography WASHINGTON to describe GWs composure during Second Battle of Trenton.

    July 5, 2015