empyrean

plural empyreans

1. historicalThe highest heaven, supposed by the ancients to be a region of pure light and fire or else composed of ether, and sometimes seen as the dwelling-place of God or other divine beings; the highest celestial sphere according to ancient and medieval astronomy.

   So ſung they, and the Empyrean rung, With Halleluiahs: […]

   1674, John Milton, “Book VII”, in Paradise Lost. […], 2nd edition, London: […] S[amuel] Simmons […], →OCLC, page 192

   5 more examples

   Perchance they mark Where India's cliffs the trembling cloud invade, Or Andes with his fiery banner flouts The empyrean,...

   1827, Lydia Sigourney, Poems, To the Moon, page 14

   Milton, a name to resound for ages; / Whose titan angels, Gabriel, Abdiel, / Starr'd from Jehovah's gorgeous armouries, / Tower, the deep-domed empyrëan / Rings to the roar of an angel onset— […]

   1864, Alfred Tennyson, “[Experiments.] [Experiments] In Quantity”, in Enoch Arden, &c., London: Edward Moxon & Co., […], →OCLC, page 174

   I could have spoken in blank verse of Shakesperian beauty, all sorts of great ideas flashed through my mind; it was as though the bonds of my flesh had been loosened and left the spirit free to soar to the empyrean of its native power.

   1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC

   Her vulgar cares were at an end. She would be able to arrange her life as she pleased, to soar into that empyrean of security where creditors cannot penetrate.

   1905, Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC

   This particular evening, if it remembered for nothing else, will be remembered in that place for its strange sunset. […] The whole was so close about the earth, as if to express nothing but a violent secrecy. The very empyrean seemed to be a secret.

   1908, G[ilbert] K[eith] Chesterton, “The Two Poets of Saffron Park”, in The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare, Bristol: J[ames] W[illiams] Arrowsmith, […]; London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Company, →OCLC, page 13

1. not comparableOf the sky or the heavens, and particularly relating to the highest celestial sphere in premodern cosmology; celestially refined.

   Lispings empyrean will I sometime teach / Thine honied tongue— […]

   1818, John Keats, “Book II”, in Endymion: A Poetic Romance, London: […] T[homas] Miller, […] for Taylor and Hessey, […], →OCLC, page 91, lines 821–822

   3 more examples

   In th' Empyrean Heaven, (the bleſs'd Abode) / The Thrones and the Dominions proſtrate lie, / Not daring to behold their angry God: / And an huſh'd ſilence damps the tuneful sky.

   1667, John Dryden, Annus Mirabilis: The Year of Wonders, 1666. […], London: […] Henry Herringman, […], →OCLC, stanza 270, page 71

   Yet upward she [the goddess] incessant flies; Resolv’d to reach the high empyrean Sphere.

   1700, Matthew Prior, Carmen Saeculare

   […] it was like those gods of Epicurus, who saw the doings of men from their empyrean heights and had no might to alter one smallest particle of what occurred.

   1915, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, chapter LXXVIII, in Of Human Bondage, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, →OCLC

   Synonyms: empyreal

2. French: empyréen (fr)