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Temporal vs Ethereal - What's the difference?

temporal | ethereal |

As adjectives the difference between temporal and ethereal

is that temporal is of or relating to time or temporal can be of the temples of the head while ethereal is pertaining to the hypothetical upper, purer air, or to the higher regions beyond the earth or beyond the atmosphere; celestial; otherworldly; as, ethereal space; ethereal regions.

As a noun temporal

is (chiefly|in the plural) anything temporal or secular; a temporality or temporal can be (skeleton) either of the bones on the side of the skull, near the ears.

temporal

English

Etymology 1

From (etyl) temporal, from (etyl) temporal, from (etyl) temporalis, from .

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Of or relating to time.
  • Of limited time; not perpetual.
  • * Bible, 2 Corinthians iv. 18
  • The things which are seen are temporal , but the things which are not seen are eternal.
  • Of or relating to the material world, as opposed to (spiritual).
  • * 2011 , Thomas Penn, Winter King , Penguin 2012, p. 166:
  • Not long before, he had ruefully acknowledged in a letter to his pious mother that most of his appointments to the bench of bishops had been motivated by distinctly temporal impulses.
  • Lasting a short time only.
  • Civil or political, as distinguished from ecclesiastical.
  • temporal''' power; '''temporal courts
    Derived terms
    * extratemporal * metatemporal * temporality * temporally

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (chiefly, in the plural) Anything temporal or secular; a temporality.
  • (Dryden)
  • * Lowell
  • He assigns supremacy to the pope in spirituals, and to the emperor in temporals .

    Etymology 2

    From .

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • of the temples of the head
  • Derived terms
    * temporal bone * temporal lobe

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (skeleton) Either of the bones on the side of the skull, near the ears.
  • Any of a reptile's scales on the side of the head between the parietal and supralabial scales, and behind the postocular scales.
  • ethereal

    English

    Alternative forms

    * aethereal * aetherial * * (obsolete) * * (obsolete)

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Pertaining to the hypothetical upper, purer air, or to the higher regions beyond the earth or beyond the atmosphere; celestial; otherworldly; as, ethereal space; ethereal regions.
  • * 1667 : , Paradise Lost , book VII
  • Go, heavenly guest, ethereal messenger.
  • * 1862 : , Walking .
  • I trust that we shall be more imaginative, that our thoughts will be clearer, fresher, and more ethereal , as our sky,...
  • Consisting of ether; hence, exceedingly light or airy; tenuous; spiritlike; characterized by extreme delicacy, as form, manner, thought, etc.
  • * 1733 : , An Essay on Man
  • Vast chain of being, which from God began, Natures ethereal , human, angel, man.
  • Delicate, light and airy.
  • Derived terms

    * ethereality * ethereally * etherealness * etherealization * etherealisation * etherealizing