preternatural

comparative more preternatural · superlative most preternatural · alternative praeternatural · alternative archaic præternatural

1. Beyond or not conforming to what is natural or according to the regular course of things; strange.

   "Villette! Villette! wrote George Eliot. "It is a still more wonderful book than Jane Eyre. There is something almost preternatural in its power."

   2014 January 4, Lucy Hughes-Hallett, “The other Charlotte Brontë girl [online version (3 January 2014): Why Villette is better than Jane Eyre: Everybody knows Jane Eyre, but Charlotte Brontë's greatest and most original novel was her last, Villette]”, in The Daily Telegraph, London, archived from the original on 18 Feb 2015, page R14

   3 more examples

   I have employed cold air, and very often spongings with cold water, in order to moderate the preternatural heat of the skin, and to check the increased velocity of the circulation.

   1815, William Shearman, New Medical and Physical Journal

   Doubtless there has been some exaggeration in the picturesque and fanciful relations of the almost preternatural skill and cunning of the Indian […]

   1882, George Edward Ellis, The Red Man and the White Man in North America, page 152

   D.B. Woodside as Amenadiel: "Something Charlotte said made me think. Maybe celestial beings and humans, Luci maybe they aren't that different." Tom Ellis as Lucifer Morningstar: "What, are we talking in bed? 'Cause we know all know my skills are preternatural. But I suppose you on the other hand..."

   2018, “Quintessential Deckerstar”, in Lucifer

   Synonyms: inexplicable, exceptional, extraordinary, abnormal, uncanny

2. datedHaving an existence outside the natural world.

   Macbeth is like a record of a preternatural and tragical event.

   1817, William Hazlitt, “Macbeth”, in Characters of Shakespeare's Plays

   2 more examples

   Not Leonore, in that preternatural midnight excursion with her phantom lover, was more terrified than poor Maggie in this entirely natural ride on a short-paced donkey, [...]

   1860, George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss, Book 1, Chapter 11

   Vansittart Smith, fixing his eyes upon the fellow's skin, was conscious of a sudden impression that there was something inhuman and preternatural about its appearance.

   1925, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Ring of Thoth

   Synonyms: paranormal, supernatural, unnatural