Meaning

Of, concerned with, or preoccupied with a world different from the tangible world, especially a fantasy, imaginary, or mystical world..

Definitions by Sense

1. Of, concerned with, or preoccupied with a world different from the tangible world, especially a fantasy, imaginary, or mystical world.
2. Of, concerned with, or preoccupied with spiritual matters.
3. (by extension, obsolete, rare) Of or relating to the imagination or intellect.

Example Sentences

In Just My Type: A Book about Fonts (2010) Simon Garfield describes [Edward] Johnston as 'a gaunt fine-boned man with a full moustache', and there's a picture of him at work with a quill pen that makes him look as other-worldly as a medieval sprite.

The bull kelp forests off Northern California are sometimes spoken of as the redwoods of the sea. And like the redwoods, these forests are in danger. In less than a decade, these otherworldly undersea landscapes, lush with life, have all but disappeared along 200 miles of coast north of San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge.

Every religion that becomes ascendant, in so far as it is not other-worldly, must necessarily set its stamp upon the methods and administration of the law.

[Leo] Tolstoy was not a saint, but he tried very hard to make himself into a saint, and the standards he applied to literature were other-worldly ones.

[Simphiwe] Dana has the otherworldly temperament of a mystic.

It is easy with the other-worldly gifts to be a schöne Seele [beautiful soul]; but to the large vision of [Johann Wolfgang von] Goethe that seemed to be a phase of life that a man might feel all round and leave behind him.

Word Forms

• more otherworldly
• most otherworldly
• other-worldly

Synonyms for otherworldly

Related Words

When Should You Use Otherworldly?

Use otherworldly when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.

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