numenn.

1495 Trevisa's Bartholomeus De Proprietatibus Rerum (de Worde) xvii. cxlii. sig. Tiij^v/2 And the wode that hyght Nemus hath that name of Numen: that is god, for therin Yoo made a maw met.

1582 S. Batman Vppon Bartholome, De Proprietatibus Rerum xvii. cxlii. f. 318/² The Woode that is called Nemus, hath the name of Numen, that is God.

1628 O. Felltham Resolves: 2nd Cent. xvi. sig. L^v As if allowing them the name, they would conserue the Numen to themselues.

1634 T. Herbert Relation Some Yeares Trauaile 193 That what they first meet..they make their Numen and tutelary God for that day.

1662 H. More Coll. Philos. Writings (ed. 2) Pref. Gen. p. ix For it is the same Numen in us that moves all things in some sort or other.

1711 Ld. Shaftesbury Characteristicks III. Misc. ii. ii. 65 They madly dote upon Matter, and devoutly worship it, as the only Numen.

1790 Ann. Reg. 1788 Antiquities 120/1 Any local one [sc. idol], whose Numen and worship..was already established as local, would not do.

1835 J. Taylor Wks. I. 112 The Divine presence hath made all places holy, and every place hath a Numen in it, even the eternal God.

1874 J. Fergusson in Contemp. Rev. Oct. 765 In a cathedral town where all unite..in..adoring the sacred and historical numen of the place.

1910 Encycl. Brit. I. 760/1 To the primitive..the presence of the divinity was indicated by..landmarks; and from this..grew the theory that a numen might be induced to take up an abode in an artificial heap of stones.

1936 E. Underhill Worship x. 197 In the teaching of the prophets of the Reform of Josiah, and of the Exile, we find God recognized and adored..as the Numen, the Eternal One, the utterly Transcendent.., and as the giver of the Moral Law.

1994 C. DeLint Memory & Dream 329 You call them numena, yourself. Strictly speaking, a numen is merely a spiritual force, an influence one might feel around a certain thing or place.