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Contemplative vs Spiritual - What's the difference?

contemplative | spiritual |

As nouns the difference between contemplative and spiritual

is that contemplative is someone who has dedicated themselves to religious contemplation while spiritual is (christianity|historical) a member of a branch of the franciscan order who advocated simple dress and renounced the owning of property.

As an adjective contemplative

is inclined to contemplate; introspective and thoughtful; meditative.

contemplative

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Inclined to contemplate; introspective and thoughtful; meditative.
  • * 1873 , (John Stuart Mill), Autobiography , Chapter 5:
    • Compared with the greatest poets, he may be said to be the poet of unpoetical natures, possessed of quiet and contemplative tastes. But unpoetical natures are precisely those which require poetic cultivation. This cultivation Wordsworth is much more fitted to give, than poets who are intrinsically far more poets than he.
  • Pertaining especially to a contemplative Roman Catholic religious or one of the contemplative Roman Catholic religious orders.
  • * 1870 , (Charles Dickens), The Mystery of Edwin Drood , Chapter 3:
    • Whether the nuns of yore, being of a submissive rather than a stiff-necked generation, habitually bent their contemplative heads to avoid collision with the beams in the low ceilings of the many chambers of their House [...] may be matters of interest to its haunting ghosts (if any), but constitute no item in Miss Twinkleton's half-yearly accounts.
  • Relating to, or having the power of, contemplation.
    • contemplative faculties

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • Someone who has dedicated themselves to religious contemplation.
  • * 2009 , (Karen Armstrong), The Case for God , Vintage 2010, p. 112:
    • The contemplative must not expect exotic feelings, visions or heavenly voices; these did not come from God but from his own fevered imagination and would merely distract him from his true objective [...].
    ----

    spiritual

    English

    Alternative forms

    * spirituall, spirytual, spirytuall, spyritual, spyrituall, spyrytual, spyrytuall

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Of or pertaining to the spirit or the soul.
    • Respect towards ancestors is an essential part of Thai spiritual practice.
  • * Sir Thomas Browne
    • God's law is spiritual ; it is a transcript of the divine nature, and extends its authority to the acts of the soul of man.
  • Of or pertaining to God or a place of worship; sacred.
  • Of or pertaining to spirits; supernatural.
  • Consisting of spirit; not material; incorporeal.
    • a spiritual substance or being
  • * Bible, 1. Corinthians xv. 44
    • It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.
  • Of or relating to the intellectual and higher endowments of the mind; mental; intellectual.
  • (Christianity) Controlled and inspired by the Holy Spirit; pure; holy.
  • * Bible, Gal. vi. 1
    • If a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual , restore such an one.
  • Not lay or temporal; relating to sacred things; ecclesiastical.
    • the spiritual''' functions of the clergy; lords '''spiritual''' and temporal; a '''spiritual corporation

    Derived terms

    * antispiritual * antispiritualism * antispirituality * spiritual desertion * spiritualism * spiritualist * spirituality * spiritually

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A Christian religious song, especially one in an African-American style, or a similar non-religious song.
  • Any spiritual function, office, or affair.
    • He assigns supremacy to the pope in spirituals , and to the emperor in temporals. — Lowell.