otherworldly
/ˌʌðəɹˈwɜɹl(d)li/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.84 in modern English
22
Scrabble Score
12
Letters
4
Syllables
9
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
Of, concerned with, or preoccupied with a world different from the tangible world, especially a fantasy, imaginary, or mystical world.
adj
Of, concerned with, or preoccupied with a world different from the tangible world, especially a fantasy, imaginary, or mystical world.
adj
Of, concerned with, or preoccupied with spiritual matters.
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."
- "He had not seen cricket played since the war began; it seemed almost other-worldly, with the click of the bats, and the shrill young voices, under the distant drone of that sky-hornet threshing along to Hendon."
- "An almost otherworldly resilience has characterized the 40-year arc of the Clintons' political lives, a well-documented pattern of dazzling success, shattering setback and inevitable recovery."
- ""Hey, Rick." / "Oh, hey, kiddo. How's your Saturday?" / "You know, super chill. W-W-Whatcha doin'?" / "Eh, nothing adventurous. You know that race of Underground Dwelling Cannibal Horse People that we're always fighting?" / "Yeah, the CHUDs. W-W-What about 'em?" / "Well, don't tell anybody, but I'm working on a bioweapon to use against them, so I got this barrel of horse semen from your mom's hospital and I'm just gonna, you know, subject it to some otherworldly forces.""
- "The sudden inundation from the remnants of Ida transformed familiar scenes of life in New York into otherworldly and waterlogged chaos on Wednesday night."
Etymology
From other world (“a world beyond death; a world other than the everyday world”) + -ly (suffix meaning having the likeness of, resembling forming adjectives).
Word Breakdown
- Prefix: other world
- Root: *weyh₁-
- Suffix: -ly
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˌʌðəɹˈwɜɹl(d)li/
- British English: /ˌʌðəˈwɜːldli/