Definition of "ethereal"

Since to part, / Go heavenly Gueſt, Ethereal Meſſenger, / Sent from whoſe ſovran goodneſs I adore.

1667, John Milton, “Book VIII”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], […]; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, lines 1282–1284

The fanciful fables of fairy land are but allegories of the young poet's mind when the sweet spell is upon him. Some slight thing calls up the visionary world, and all the outward and actual is for the time forgotten. It is a fever ethereal and lovely; but, like all other fevers, leaving behind weakness and exhaustion.

1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn, […], pages 25–26

I trust that we shall be more imaginative, that our thoughts will be clearer, fresher, and more ethereal, as our sky, […]

1862, Henry David Thoreau, “Walking”, in The Atlantic Monthly‎, volume 9, number 56

She was very young—at the most nineteen, with a pale somewhat refined face, yellow hair, merry blue eyes, and shining teeth. Her beauty was of an ethereal type.

1885, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Man From Archangel‎

Our visitors, upon the whole, were not much to boast of; and yet, sitting in a corner and very much ashamed of myself and my absurd appearance, I have again and again tasted the finest, the rarest, and the most ethereal pleasures in a glance of an eye that I should never see again—and never wanted to.

1893–1897 (date written), Robert Louis Stevenson, “A Tale of a Lion Rampant”, in St. Ives: Being the Adventures of a French Prisoner in England, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, published 1897, page 6

Sure he preſum'd of praiſe, vvho came to ſtock / Th' etherial paſtures vvith ſo fair a flock; / Burniſh'd, and bat'ning on their food, to ſhovv / The diligence of carefull herds belovv.

1687, [John Dryden], “[The First Part]”, in The Hind and the Panther. A Poem, in Three Parts, 2nd edition, London: […] Jacob Tonson […], page 22

Vaſt chain of being ! which from God began, / Ethereal Eſſence, Spirit, Subſtance, Man, / Beaſt, Bird, Fiſh, Inſect ! [...]

1733, [Alexander Pope], An Essay on Man. […], epistle I, London: Printed for J[ohn] Wilford, […], page 14, lines 237–239

Strange mystery of our nature, that those in whom genius developes itself in imagination, thus taking its most ethereal form, should yet be the most dependent on the opinions of others!

1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter I, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), page 3

He did not see […] that already, in the incipiency of his work, the heavy unmalleable element of mere book-knowledge would not congenially weld with the wide fluidness and ethereal airiness of spontaneous creative thought.

1852 July, Herman Melville, “Book XXI. Pierre Immaturely Attempts a Mature Book. Tidings from the Meadows. Plinlimmon.”, in Pierre: Or, The Ambiguities, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […]

The innocent if lawless elf, / Ethereal in virginity, / Retains the consciousness of self.

1876, Herman Melville, “Canto XXII. Of Rama.”, in Walter E. Bezanson, editor, Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land […], New York, N.Y.: Hendricks House, published 1960, part I (Jerusalem), page 108, lines 17–19

The hall, when emptied of its furniture, brilliantly lit, adorned with flowers whose scent tinged the air, presented a wonderful appearance of ethereal gaiety.

1915, Virginia Woolf, chapter XII, in The Voyage Out, London: The Hogarth Press, published 1949