Standard Lemma guide
Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.
Sound
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name
The god-personification of the bright, glowing upper air of heaven. He is the Roman counterpart of Aether.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: Roman
Topics: human-sciences, mysticism, mythology, philosophy, sciences
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
name
The ancient American prophet of Mormon theology who wrote the Book of Ether in the Book of Mormon.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: Mormonism
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
noun
The substance formerly supposed to fill the upper regions of the atmosphere above the clouds, in particular as a medium breathed by deities.
The medium breathed by human beings; the air.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: broadly, countable, literary, poetic, uncountable
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
noun
The substance formerly supposed to fill the upper regions of the atmosphere above the clouds, in particular as a medium breathed by deities.
The sky, the heavens; the void, nothingness.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: broadly, countable, literary, poetic, uncountable
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
noun
Often as aether and more fully as luminiferous aether: The hypothetical substance permeating space, functioning as a medium for electromagnetic waves to propagate through, and which does not exert resistance to the movement of matter; its existence is incompatible with Einstein's theory of relativity; famously found to be undetectable by the 1887 Michelson–Morley experiment.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: historical, uncountable
Topics: natural-sciences, physical-sciences, physics
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
noun
The atmosphere or space as a medium for broadcasting radio and television signals; also, a notional space through which Internet and other digital communications take place; cyberspace.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: colloquial, uncountable
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
noun
A particular quality created by or surrounding an object, person, or place; an atmosphere, an aura.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: colloquial, uncountable
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
noun
Diethyl ether (C4H10O), an organic compound with a sweet odour used in the past as an anaesthetic.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: uncountable
Topics: chemistry, natural-sciences, organic-chemistry, physical-sciences
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
noun
Any of a class of organic compounds containing an oxygen atom bonded to two hydrocarbon groups.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: countable
Topics: chemistry, natural-sciences, organic-chemistry, physical-sciences
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
noun
Starting fluid.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: uncountable
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
noun
Alternative letter-case form of Ether.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: alt-of
Topics: business, cryptocurrencies, cryptocurrency, finance
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
noun
A unit of the Ethereum digital currency, ETH.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Topics: business, cryptocurrencies, cryptocurrency, finance
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
verb
To viciously humiliate or insult.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: slang, transitive
Synonyms: abase, abash, bring low, confuse, confound, debase, degrade, demean, depress, disconcert, discomfit, dishonour, embarrass, humble, humiliate, lower, mortify, put to shame, shame
Antonyms: none provided
verb
Alternative form of edder.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: UK, alt-of, alternative, dialectal
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
noun
a colorless volatile highly inflammable liquid formerly used as an inhalation anesthetic
Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: ethoxyethane, divinyl ether, vinyl ether, diethyl ether, ethyl ether
Antonyms: none provided
Broader terms: inhalation anesthetic, inhalation anaesthetic, inhalation general anesthetic, inhalation general anaesthetic
Narrower terms: enflurane, Ethrane
noun
a medium that was once supposed to fill all space and to support the propagation of electromagnetic waves
Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: aether
Antonyms: none provided
Broader terms: medium
noun
any of a class of organic compounds that have two hydrocarbon groups linked by an oxygen atom
Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
Broader terms: organic compound
noun
the fifth and highest element after air and earth and fire and water; was believed to be the substance composing all heavenly bodies
Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: quintessence
Antonyms: none provided
Broader terms: element
History
From Old French ether, from Latin aether (“the upper pure, bright air”), from Ancient Greek αἰθήρ (aithḗr, “upper air”), from αἴθω (aíthō, “to burn, shine”). Doublet of Aether.
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h2eydh-der. Proto-Hellenic *áithō Ancient Greek αἴθω (aíthō) ▲ Ancient Greek ᾱ̓ήρ (āḗr)influ.? Ancient Greek αἰθήρ (aithḗr)der. Latin aethērder. English ether From Middle English ēther (“the caelum aetherum of ancient cosmology in which the planets orbit; a shining, fluid substance described as a form of air or fire; air”), borrowed from Anglo-Norman ether and Middle French ether, ethere, aether, from Old French aether (“highest and purest part of the atmosphere; medium supposedly filling the upper regions of space”) (modern French éther), or directly from its etymon Latin aethēr (“highest and purest part of the atmosphere; air; heavens, sky; light of day; ethereal matter surrounding a deity”) (note also New Latin aethēr (“chemical compound analogous to diethyl ether”)), from Ancient Greek αἰθήρ (aithḗr, “purer upper air of the atmosphere; heaven, sky; theoretical medium supposed to fill unoccupied space and transmit heat and light”), from αἴθω (aíthō, “to burn, ignite; to blaze, shine”), from Proto-Indo-European *h2eydh- (“to burn; fire”). The English word is cognate with Italian ether, ethera (both obsolete), etere, Middle Dutch ether (modern Dutch aether (obsolete), ether), German Äther, Ether, Portuguese éter, Spanish éter.
From Ethereum.
From “Ether” (2001), a song by the American hip hop recording artist Nas (born 1973). According to Nas, the song, a diss track aimed at fellow artist Jay-Z (born 1969), was thus named because he was once told that ghosts and spirits do not like the fumes from ether (noun, sense 5), and he viewed the song as affecting Jay-Z in a similar way. The song contains the lines “I fuck with your soul like ether” and “That ether, that shit that make your soul burn slow”.
Across languages
143 source translations are retained for this English entry.
