Blissful vs Empyrean - What's the difference?
blissful | empyrean | Related terms |
Extremely happy; full of joy; experiencing, indicating, causing, or characterized by bliss.
* 1738 , , "London: A Poem in Imitation of the Third Satire of Juvenal", lines 25-26,
* 1868 , , Little Women , ch. 27,
* 1983 , James Hijiya, "American Gravestones and Attitudes toward Death: A Brief History," Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society , vol. 127, no. 5., page 349,
(obsolete) Blessed; glorified.
* c1387 , , "The Prioress' Tale," in The Canterbury Tales ,
The region of pure light and fire; the highest heaven, where the pure element of fire was supposed by the ancients to exist: the same as the ether, the ninth heaven according to ancient astronomy.
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* 1863 , , Experiments in Quantity
*
of the sky or the heavens; celestially refined
* 1667 , , Annus Mirabilis
* 1700 , , Carmen Saeculare
* 1818 ,
Blissful is a related term of empyrean.
As adjectives the difference between blissful and empyrean
is that blissful is extremely happy; full of joy; experiencing, indicating, causing, or characterized by bliss while empyrean is of the sky or the heavens; celestially refined.As a noun empyrean is
the region of pure light and fire; the highest heaven, where the pure element of fire was supposed by the ancients to exist: the same as the ether, the ninth heaven according to ancient astronomy.blissful
English
Alternative forms
* blissfull (archaic)Adjective
(en adjective)- In pleasing dreams the blissful age renew,
- And call Britannia's glories back to view;
- She ... led a blissful life, unconscious of want, care, or bad weather, while she sat safe and happy in an imaginary world.
- New England carvers between the 1720s and the 1750s transformed, step by step, the winged skull into the winged face, adding flesh to bare bone and turning the toothy grin of death into the blissful smile of a saved soul.
- Thus had this widow her little son y-taught
- Our blissful Lady, Christe's mother dear,
- To worship aye
Usage notes
"Blissful" occasionally has the extra connotation that a person is extremely happy because he or she fails to recognize or accept certain adversities or other harsh realities.Synonyms
* ecstatic * elated * euphoric * joyful * orgasmic * overjoyed * rapturous * on cloud nine * See alsoReferences
* * * * Oxford English Dictionary , second edition (1989) * Random House Webster's Unabridged Electronic Dictionary (1987-1996)empyrean
English
(wikipedia empyrean)Noun
(en noun)- So sung they, and the Empyrean rung, / With Halleluiahs:
- the deep-domed empyrean / Rings to the roar of an angel onset
- The very empyrean seemed to be a secret.
Adjective
(-)- In th’empyrean heaven, the bless’d abode, / The Thrones and the Dominions prostrate lie, / Not daring to behold their angry God.
- Yet upward she [the goddess] incessant flies; / Resolv’d to reach the high empyrean Sphere.
- Lispings empyrean will ii sometimes teach / Thine honeyed tongue.