metaphysicaladj.n.
/ˌmɛtəˈfɪzᵻkl/, U.S. /ˌmɛdəˈfɪzᵻk(ə)l/ A. adj.
I. Senses relating to philosophical speculation or intellectual abstraction.
1.
a. Of, belonging to, or of the nature of metaphysics; such as is recognized by metaphysics. Also more generally: transcendental, philosophical.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > mental capacity > philosophy > metaphysics > [adjective]
metaphysicalc1454
metaphysic1528
supernatural1569
transcendental1835
c1454 R. Pecock Folewer to Donet 50 (MED) Of speculatijf opynyoun, sum is generali philosophik opynyoun, and sum is methafisical opynyoun.
?a1475 (?a1425) tr. R. Higden Polychron. (Harl. 2261) (1871) III. 365 (MED) Aristotille..made..problemes perspective and metaphisicalle.
1532 T. More Confut. Tyndale in Wks. (1557) 386/1 Argumentes grounded vpon philosophy & metaphisicall reasons.
1646 Sir T. Browne Pseudodoxia Epidemica vii. iii. 345 A popular expression, which will not stand a Metaphysicall and strict examination. View more context for this quotation
1660 Bp. J. Taylor Ductor Dubitantium I. i. v. 175 Negative doubt is either Metaphysical or Moral.
1690 J. Locke Ess. Humane Understanding iv. v. 292 1. Moral Truth... 2. Metaphysical Truth, which is nothing but the real Existence of Things, conformable to the Ideas to which we have annexed their Names.
1704 J. Norris Ess. Ideal World II. iii. 182 The metaphysical purity..of thought is the immateriality..of its object.
1776 H. L. Piozzi Diary in K. C. Balderston Thraliana (1942) I. 16 Duration and Eternity, Matter & Motion, Whig & Tory, Faith and Works were his favourite Topicks; and upon these or other Metaphysical Disquisitions would he be perpetually forcing his Company.
1792 D. Stewart Elem. Philos. Human Mind I. 72 The word cause expresses something which is supposed to be necessarily connected with the change; and without which it could not have happened. This may be called the metaphysical meaning of the word; and such causes may be called metaphysical or efficient causes.
1817 J. Bentham Chrestomathia Pt. II 145 By imagination, the idea and practice of logical, noological, metaphysical analysis—was deduced from that of physical.
1867 A. P. Forbes Explan. 39 Art. (1881) i. 14 The triple distinction of God's attributes into metaphysical, intellectual, and moral.
1884 B. Bosanquet et al. tr. H. Lotze Metaphysic ii. v. 301 Instead of a metaphysical theory, what he gives is scarcely more than a logical classification.
1908 H. G. Wells First & Last Things i. §1 I found it necessary to consider and state certain truths about the nature of knowledge, about the meaning of truth and the value of words, that is to say I found I had to begin by being metaphysical.
1959 A. Koestler Sleepwalkers iv. ii. 255 We have traversed the frontier between metaphysical speculation and empirical science.
1984 D. Cupitt Sea of Faith ii. 49 Descartes aimed to establish a basic metaphysical framework by pure speculative argument.
b. depreciative. Of reasoning, ideas, etc.: excessively subtle or abstract.
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the mind > mental capacity > understanding > reason, faculty of reasoning > misleading argument, sophistry > excessive subtlety, hair-splitting > [adjective]
oversubtle1490
curious1585
metaphysical1646
metaphysic1663
subtle1668
subtilizing1683
hair-splitting1820
straw-splitting1828
pilpulistic1878
1646 J. Maxwell Burden of Issachar 31 I confesse, this Divinitie is so transcendent and Metaphysicall, that it exceeds my capacitie.
1719–20 J. Swift Let. to Young Gentleman (1721) 24 Some Gentlemen..are apt to fill their Sermons with Philosophical Terms and Notions of the metaphysical or abstracted Kind.
1728 E. Chambers Cycl. (at cited word) The Word is also used to denote something too subtle, abstract, and refined. In this sense we say, such a Reasoning, such a Proof, is too Metaphysical, &c.
1816 J. Gilchrist Philos. Etymol. 214 We might show how applicable to certain rhetorical metaphysical vaporers the descriptions are.
1925 S. Lewis in Amer. Mercury Oct. 135/2 It is unproven that the dialectic of this metaphysical art of plot-guessing is inferior to laboratory research.
c. Based on abstract general reasoning; determined a priori or on theoretical principles. Now rare.
ΚΠ
1702 Clarendon's Hist. Rebellion I. v. 515 When they saw..That from Metaphysical considerations, what might be done in case of Necessity, the Militia of the Kingdom was Actually seised on.
1791 J. Boswell Life Johnson anno 1773 I. 421 [Johnson:] There seems, (said he,) to be in authours a stronger right of property than that by occupancy; a metaphysical right, a right, as it were, of creation, which should from its nature be perpetual.
1826 W. Scott Woodstock I. vi. 157 In many a case, where wars have been waged for points of metaphysical right, they have been at last gladly terminated, upon the mere hope of obtaining general tranquillity.
1977 China Now June 8/2 [David Fernbach] classifies the careerist GOF [= Gang of Four], with its use of mechanical, metaphysical ideology, its cap factory and steel mill, its factional intrigue in place of Party discipline as ‘the Left’.
d. Philosophy. In the philosophy of Wittgenstein and the logical positivists: (of an entity or proposition) not empirically verifiable. Cf. metaphysics n. 1d.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > mental capacity > philosophy > empiricism > [adjective] > of or relating to verificationism > not verifiable
metaphysical1922
1922 C. K. Ogden et al. tr. L. Wittgenstein Tractatus 151 Where in the world is a metaphysical subject to be noted?
1936 A. J. Ayer Lang., Truth & Logic i. 31 We may accordingly define a metaphysical sentence as a sentence which purports to express a genuine proposition, but does, in fact, express neither a tautology nor an empirical hypothesis.
1950 R. Carnap Logical Found. Probability ii. 38 I hope that nobody will misinterpret my statement of the objectivity of logical relations as a metaphysical statement of the ‘subsistence’ of these relations in a Platonic heaven.
1953 G. E. M. Anscombe tr. L. Wittgenstein Philos. Investig. §116 What we do is to bring words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use.
2. Of persons or their attributes: having an inclination towards or interest in metaphysics; suited to the study of metaphysics.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > mental capacity > philosophy > metaphysics > [adjective] > adherent of
metaphysicala1628
metaphysic1683
metaphysicous1683
a1628 F. Greville Life of Sidney (1651) xiv. 175 Many Metaphysicall Phormio's before me, who had lost themselves in teaching Kings, and Princes, how to governe their People.
a1652 J. Smith Select Disc. (1660) i. iii. 20 The fourth is ἄνθρωπος θεωρητικὸς, The true Metaphysical and Contemplative man.
1683 J. Pettus Ess. Metallick Words at Alchimist, in Fleta Minor ii Majerus and Spagnetus..being a sort of Metaphisical Chimists, who do make it a chief Principle of that Science to be strict in their Devotion towards God.
1785 F. Reynolds Enquiry conc. Princ. Taste (1951) iii. 35 What the impulsive spring is, which moves the affections.., I leave to my metaphysical readers to determine.
1833 Pearl & Lit. Gaz. 3 No. 7. 56/1 I'll look into it the first day I feel metaphysical.
1853 C. Kingsley Hypatia I. Pref. p. xii In the more metaphysical and contemplative East.
1856 H. B. Stowe Dred I. xv. 203 His metaphysical talent.
1958 Punch 29 Jan. 181/2 His style of oratory is peculiar, as he bumbles along like a metaphysical farmer.
3.
a. Literary Criticism. Designating certain 17th-cent. poets (esp. Donne, Herbert, Crashaw, Vaughan, Marvell, and Traherne) or their poetic style, characterized by wit, syntactic complexity, and the use of elaborate and intricate schemes of imagery to express abstract ideas and emotional states. In later use also applied more broadly to other poetry having similar concerns, or employing such techniques.
ΘΚΠ
society > leisure > the arts > literature > poetry > poet > school of poets or poetic movement > [adjective]
metaphysicala1744
metaphysic1779
lakish1819
Parnassian1895
Georgian1912
imagist1912
unanimist1915
imagistic1916
Acmeist1921
ultraist1931
simultanéiste1959
Black Mountain1960
spatialist1964
a1641 W. Drummond Let. on True Nature of Poetry in Poems & Prose (1976) 191 In vaine have some men of late (Transformeres of evrye thing) consulted upon her [sc. Poesy's] reformation, and endevured to abstracte her to Metaphysicall Ideas, and Scholasticall Quiddityes.
1693 J. Dryden Disc. Orig. & Progr. Satire in Ess. (1900) II. 19 He [sc. Donne] affects the metaphysics, not only in his satires, but in his amorous verses, where nature only should reign; and perplexes the minds of the fair sex with nice speculations of philosophy, when he should engage their hearts... In this..Mr. Cowley has copied him to a fault.]
a1744 A. Pope in J. Spence Anecd. (1820) 173 Cowley..as well as Davenant borrowed his metaphysical style from Donne.
1779 S. Johnson Cowley in Pref. Wks. Eng. Poets I. 39 About the beginning of the seventeenth century appeared a race of writers that may be termed the metaphysical poets... The metaphysical poets were men of learning, and to shew their learning was their whole endeavour.
1785 T. Warton in J. Milton Poems (new ed.) Pref. p. xv But what are these conceptions [of Cowley's]? Metaphysical conceits, all the unnatural extravagancies of his English poetry.
1814 R. Southey in Q. Rev. 12 82 The metaphysical school, which marred a good poet in Cowley, and found its proper direction in Butler, expired in Norris of Bemerton.
1906 H. J. C. Grierson First Half 17th Cent. ix. 374 In Donne's love-poetry there is a real metaphysical strain, while the range of erudition from which he draws his imagery was something altogether new.
1921 G. Saintsbury in Times Lit. Suppl. 27 Oct. 698/2 [Dryden] might..so use ‘metaphysics’ as equivalent to ‘second thoughts’, things that come after the natural first; and, once more, this definition would, I think, fit all the poetry commonly called ‘metaphysical’.
1936 Ess. & Stud. 21 137 I use ‘metaphysical’ not in the Johnsonian sense of ‘conceited’, but as implying a certain refinement and complexity of thought—a kind of ecstasy of intellectual parturition as we find it in Shakespeare and Donne.
1960 D. Daiches Crit. Hist. Eng. Lit. II. xiv. 1114 The insistence that intellect and emotion should work together in poetry and that one should seek to recover the ‘unified sensibility’ of the metaphysical poets.
1992 Eng. Today Jan. 51/2 The witty deviation of the incongruous collocations is eye-catching and mind-bending, like the concepts of Metaphysical poetry.
b. Fine Art. In form Metaphysical. Designating an Italian artistic movement founded in Ferrara in 1917, the artists of this movement (esp. De Chirico, Carrà, and Morandi), or the works of these artists, characterized by unreal perspectives, bizarre imagery, and the incongruous juxtaposition of disparate objects, resulting in a mysterious, dreamlike quality.
ΘΚΠ
society > leisure > the arts > visual arts > period, movement, or school of art > late 19th and 20th centuries > [adjective] > others
all'antica1605
neo-Gothic1878
Barbizon1890
chinoiserie1909
neoprimitive1922
omega1922
Suprematist1922
beaux arts1924
ashcan1934
vitalistic1937
Euston Road1941
precisionist1943
abstract impressionist1950
abstract-concrete1955
neo-expressionist1957
metaphysical1958
structurist1958
auto-destructive1959
Rayonist1968
post-minimal1971
assemblagist1977
Neo-Geo1987
1958 Listener 21 Aug. 276/2 The work of the ‘Metaphysical’ painters—the early Chirico, Carrà, and Morandi.
1970 Oxf. Compan. Art 714/1 Morandi, a more isolated painter, was said by Chirico to have ‘sanctified’ Metaphysical painting to his works of 1918–19... He used the enigmatic ‘Metaphysical’ images rather for plastic and pictorial effect than for psychological suggestiveness.
1989 Art Line Apr. 50/1 What experience was it that simultaneously gave rise, about 1910, to both Futurism and Metaphysical Painting.
1993 Art Newspaper Jan. 3/3 His bibliography ranges from Mannerism to the Metaphysical painters and Guttuso.
II. Other senses relating more generally to things which are immaterial, imaginary, preternatural, or supernatural.† 5. Fanciful, fantastic, imaginary. Obsolete.
4. † b. Surpassing what is natural or ordinary; extraordinary, transcendent. Obsolete. rare.
a. Designating that which is immaterial, incorporeal, or supersensible (esp. in explicit contrast to physical).
ΘΚΠ
the world > existence and causation > existence > materiality > immateriality > [adjective]
bodilessa1398
matterlessa1398
unmateriala1398
unbodily1398
immaterialc1450
metaphysic1528
incorporeal1532
incorporate1540
incorporal1551
uncorporal1567
metaphysical1577
unphysical1593
limbless1594
corpseless1596
unbodied1609
immateriate1626
incorporeous1638
uncarnate1646
unmattered1647
incorporificated1651
unembodied1662
unessential1667
inessential1677
unelementarya1706
unelementateda1706
unincarnate1709
immechanical1715
asomatous1731
unincorporate1821
unfleshly1834
ethereal1836
non-material1847
non-physical1856
unincarnated1859
discorporate1888
transubstantial1892
1577 G. Harvey Let.-bk. (1884) 56 And all that glorious company Of parsonages heroicall To greete with salutations Divine and metaphysicall.
1608 E. Topsell Hist. Serpents 1 The blessed Trinity..framed both the beneficiall & hurtfull Creatures, eyther for a Physicall or metaphysicall ende.
1668 H. More Divine Dialogues (1713) i. xxviii. 58 Hyl. There is also a Substance distinct from Matter, which therefore must be immaterial, and consequently Metaphysical.
1775 J. Harris Philos. Arrangem. xvii. 440 Thus, having before considered Physical Motion, have we now considered what may be called Metaphysical, or..Causative Motion.
1864 J. R. Lowell Fireside Trav. 316 Beautiful as fire is in itself, I suspect that part of the pleasure is metaphysical, and that the sense of playing with an element which can be so terrible adds to the zest of the spectacle.
1877 S. Cox Salv. Mundi iv. 56 That..the wicked will be turned into a place of..torment physical or metaphysical.
1920 T. S. Eliot Sacred Wood 11 Coleridge is apt to take leave of the data of criticism, and arouse the suspicion that he has been diverted into a metaphysical hare-and-hounds.
ΘΚΠ
the world > relative properties > quantity > greatness of quantity, amount, or degree > [adjective] > very great > and remarkable
outnumenc1225
whata1325
outnemea1400
excessive1477
superiora1500
supernatural?1537
supereminent?1563
extraordinary1572
no mean ——1580
metaphysical1589
superhumana1629
uncommon1700
unco1724
some1808
hellacious1847
helluva1905
(a) hang of a1941
1589 R. Greene Menaphon sig. Iv The excellence of such a Metaphusicall vertue, I meane shepheard the fame of your faire Samela, houering in the eares of euerie man as a miracle of nature.
c. That is above or goes beyond the laws of nature; belonging to an operation or agency which is more than or other than physical or natural; supernatural.
ΘΚΠ
the world > the supernatural > [adjective]
supernatural?a1425
transnatural1569
metaphysical1590
hyperphysical1600
superphysicala1603
metaphysica1631
ineffectible1659
preternatural1696
supranatural1740
transcendental1826
transmundane1859
transmaterial1903
1590 C. Marlowe Tamburlaine: 2nd Pt. sig. I7 The essentiall fourme of Marble stone, Tempered by science metaphisicall, And Spels of magicke from the mouthes of spirits.
a1616 W. Shakespeare Macbeth (1623) i. v. 28 The Golden Round, Which Fate and Metaphysicall ayde doth seeme To haue thee crown'd withall. View more context for this quotation
1628 G. Wither Britain's Remembrancer ii. 1059 The Pestilence..partly metaphysicall appears, And partly naturall.
a1779 W. Warburton Note on Pope's Rape of Lock i. 20 As the subject of the epic consists of two parts, the metaphysical and the civil.
1821 W. Scott Pirate III. xi. 256 In these plain words there is no metaphysical delusion.
1850 R. W. Emerson Goethe in Representative Men vii. 279 The lurking dæmons sat to him,..and the metaphysical elements took form.
1937 ‘C. Caudwell’ Illusion & Reality v. 101 The froth of these metaphysical worlds is too unsubstantial and therefore is always a reminder of the real world which generated it.
1988 M. Moorcock Mother London i. 7 The city's inhabitants create an exquisitely complex geometry, a geography passing beyond the natural to become metaphysical.
d. Christian Science. Designating a healer who uses non-physical means to cure physical illnesses; also applied to such methods of healing.
ΘΚΠ
society > faith > aspects of faith > spirituality > [adjective]
godcundlyeOE
godlyOE
ghostlyOE
spiritualc1384
espiritualc1405
sprituala1450
mystical1542
spiritualized1615
pneumatic1624
mystic1629
spirituousa1631
pneumatical1644
otherworldly1859
metaphysical1876
the world > health and disease > healing > healer > alternative practitioner > [adjective]
botanic1703
metaphysical1876
1876 A. B. Alcott Jrnls. (1938) 466 A wider acquaintance with idealism in its various phases will be serviceable to these ‘Metaphysical Healers’ and ‘Christian Scientists’ as they call their school.
1884 M. B. Eddy in Christian Sci. Jrnl. 2 Feb. 2 Metaphysical healing, or Christian Science, is a demand of the times.
1907 ‘M. Twain’ Christian Sci. i. 70 Mrs. Eddy is president of the Trust's Metaphysical College in Boston, where the student of C.S. healing learns the game by a three weeks' course.
1939 M. Gregory Psychotherapy iv. 178 Students, intoxicated with her doctrines, came there for instruction in metaphysical ‘obstetrics’ and moral science.
1958 T. L. Leishman Why I am Christian Scientist viii. 116 Now, as then, signs and wonders are wrought in the metaphysical healing of physical disease.
1972 Pioneers in Christian Sci. (Mary Baker Eddy Mus., Longyear Hist. Soc.) Asa Gilbert Eddy..studied with her and began the practice of metaphysical healing.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > mental capacity > perception or cognition > faculty of imagination > mental image, idea, or fancy > [adjective] > only in imagination or unreal
imaginary?1510
imaginative1517
rational1530
fantastical1531
fantasied1561
airy1565
fancied1568
legendary1570
dreamed1597
fabled1606
ideal1611
fictive1612
affectual1614
insubstantiala1616
imaginatorya1618
supposititious1620
fictitious1621
utopian1624
utopic1624
notional1629
affective1633
fictiousa1644
notionary1646
figmental1655
suppositious1655
fict1677
visionary1725
metaphysical1728
unrealized1767
fancy1801
nice-spun1801
subjective1815
aerial1829
transcendental1835
cardboardy1863
mythical1870
cardboard1879
fictionary1882
figmentary1887
alternative1939
alternate1944
fantasized1964
ideate1966
fanciful-
fantastic-
1728 E. Chambers Cycl. (at cited word) A metaphysical case, is an imaginary or chimerical case, which can scarce ever happen, or not without much difficulty; and which ought not to be laid down as a rule for common occasions.
1809 J. Lawrence Hist. Horse 125 The colours of horses, notwithstanding the metaphysical notions of former days, are of very little consequence in relation to their goodness.
1827 W. Scott Chron. Canongate Introd. i Those metaphysical persons whom the law of the neighbouring country terms John Doe and Richard Roe.
B. n.† 1. In plural = metaphysics n. 1a. Obsolete. rare.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > mental capacity > philosophy > metaphysics > [noun]
metaphysica1387
theology1390
philosophy1531
ultramundane1549
metaphysicals1550
supernaturals1562
metaphysics1569
1550 T. Nicolls tr. J. Colin in Thucydides Peloponnesian War v b The sciences that he calleth speculatiue, be the metaphisicals [Fr. les metaphysiques (1545)].
2. A metaphysical poet (see sense A. 3a). Frequently in plural. Chiefly with the.
ΘΚΠ
society > leisure > the arts > literature > poetry > poet > school of poets or poetic movement > [noun] > poets of specific schools
bardist1588
laker1814
Lakist1822
Parnassian1872
Scottish Chauceriana1883
metaphysical1887
symbolist1888
imagist1912
Acmeist1913
unanimist1915
simultaneist1923
symboliste1925
ultraist1931
spatialist1934
beat poet1955
Black Mountaineer1965
1887 G. Saintsbury Hist. Elizabethan Lit. x. 369 The very maddest and most methodless of the ‘Metaphysicals’ cannot touch Crashaw in his tasteless use of conceits.
1898 G. Saintsbury Short Hist. Eng. Lit. vii. ii. 412 Crashaw is perhaps the chief metaphysical, the type of the whole class.
1947 C. Day Lewis Colloq. Elem. Eng. Poetry 21 The poets of the Romantic Movement gave an outlet to new ideas..beneath the crust of their age, just as the Metaphysicals had done for the new ideas of their time.
1960 D. Daiches Crit. Hist. Eng. Lit. II. xiv. 1116 The poets who began to write in the late 1920's and 1930's saw both Hopkins and Eliot as their masters, as well as the metaphysicals..and the popular singers of the English music hall.
1982 M. Seymour-Smith Robert Graves viii. 113 Eliot influentially commended the metaphysicals.
3. gen. In plural. Abstract, speculative, or abstruse matters.
ΚΠ
1935 E. R. Eddison Mistress x. 192 You may have a nose for metaphysicals..but here you cry out upon no trail. I know nothing. Only, I am.
1945 W. Stevens Esthétique du Mal (1947) 15 The adventurer in humanity has not conceived of a race completely physical in a physical world. The green corn gleams and the metaphysicals lie sprawling in majors of the August heat.
1980 Jrnl. Politics 42 329 Empiricist theory which..separates law and norms (metaphysicals out there) from judicial behaviour (here and now reality).
Compounds
Appositive and parasynthetic.† metaphysical-pated adj. Obsolete
metaphysical-aesthetical adj.
ΚΠ
1963 Times Lit. Suppl. 4 Jan. 4/4 Dr. Kramrisch does not disdain any of the resources of jargon, metaphysical-aesthetical, aesthetical-theosophical.
metaphysical-epistemic adj.
ΚΠ
1971 Hist. Sci. 10 111 A consistent and effective metaphysical-epistemic understanding of science.
ΚΠ
1654 E. Gayton Pleasant Notes Don Quixot iii. viii. 117 A Metaphysicall pated Disputant.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2001; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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adj.n.c1454