Supernal

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Supernal

Postby Dr. Goodword » Mon Jun 27, 2011 10:36 pm

• supernal •

Pronunciation: su-pêr-nêl • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Adjective

Meaning: Celestial, heavenly, divine, coming from or being in the heavens.

Notes: Today's Good Word comes with an adverb, supernally, and a noun, supernality. It is almost an antonym of infernal, which originally meant "belonging to the world below", that is, the world of the dead. These meanings quite naturally led supernal to attract the sense of "heavenly, godly" and infernal to slump into the sense of "hellish".

In Play: Today's word is lovely enough to be included in our most romantic chat: "She seemed not of this Earth but was possessed of a supernal beauty unlike anything Walter had ever encountered." Its similarity in sound and meaning to supernatural only enhances it. Of course, that does not preclude it from facetious usage: "Our 'supernal' boss has just declared answering personal e-mail on company time a firing offense."

Word History: Middle English borrowed supernal from Old French in the 12th century. The French word came from Latin supernus "located above, celestial", an adjective derived from the adverb and preposition super "above, over, beyond". The Proto-Indo-European root from which Latin super was derived was (s)uper "over". This word seems to have been the comparative degree of (s)upo "under", however improbable that may seem. We find (s)uper in Sanskrit upari "over, above", in Greek hyper "over, above", and in Old English ofer "over", which today is, well, over. (Now let us all wish supernal blessings on Anthony Bowden for suggesting today's heavenly Good Word.)
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Slava
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Re: SUPERNAL

Postby Slava » Wed Dec 24, 2014 8:23 pm

For all those of that persuasion, tomorrow is considered the anniversary of a particular supernal event, so I'll wish you all a

VERY MERRY & JOYOUS CHRISTMAS!
Life is like playing chess with chessmen who each have thoughts and feelings and motives of their own.

Perry Lassiter
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Re: Supernal

Postby Perry Lassiter » Thu Dec 25, 2014 11:50 pm

With the supernal splash on the business scene of Uber, the German word "uber" must also derive from the same source.
pl

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Slava
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Re: Supernal

Postby Slava » Fri Dec 26, 2014 8:34 am

I should imagine that the business has the word as its name. Not that they are related, but that Uber seems to be a fairly common slang word these days. Judging by the crossword puzzles I'm doing, at least.
Life is like playing chess with chessmen who each have thoughts and feelings and motives of their own.


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