Adjacent Words

Spiritual definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

SPIRITUAL, a.
1. Consisting of spirit; not material; incorporeal; as a spiritual substance or being. The soul of man is spiritual.
2. Mental; intellectual; as spiritual armor.
3. Not gross; refined from external things; not sensual; relative to mind only; as a spiritual and refined religion.
4. Not lay or temporal; relating to sacred things; ecclesiastical; as the spiritual functions of the clergy; the lords spiritual and temporal; a spiritual corporation.
5. Pertaining to spirit or to the affections; pure; holy.
Gods law is spiritual; it is a transcript of the divine nature, and extends its authority to the acts of the soul of man.
6. Pertaining to the renewed nature of man; as spiritual life.
7. Not fleshly; not material; as spiritual sacrifices. 1 Peter 2.
8. Pertaining to divine things; as spiritual songs. Ephesians 5.
Spiritual court, an ecclesiastical court; a court held by a bishop or other ecclesiastic.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

adj
1: concerned with sacred matters or religion or the church; "religious texts"; "a member of a religious order"; "lords temporal and spiritual"; "spiritual leaders"; "spiritual songs" [syn: religious, spiritual]
2: concerned with or affecting the spirit or soul; "a spiritual approach to life"; "spiritual fulfillment"; "spiritual values"; "unearthly love" [syn: spiritual, unearthly]
3: lacking material body or form or substance; "spiritual beings"; "the vital transcendental soul belonging to the spiritual realm"-Lewis Mumford
4: resembling or characteristic of a phantom; "a ghostly face at the window"; "a phantasmal presence in the room"; "spectral emanations"; "spiritual tappings at a seance" [syn: apparitional, ghostlike, ghostly, phantasmal, spectral, spiritual] n
1: a kind of religious song originated by Blacks in the southern United States [syn: spiritual, Negro spiritual]

Merriam Webster's

I. adjective Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French & Late Latin; Anglo-French espirital, spiritual, from Late Latin spiritualis, from Latin, of breathing, of wind, from spiritus Date: 14th century 1. of, relating to, consisting of, or affecting the spirit ; incorporeal <spiritual needs> 2. a. of or relating to sacred matters <spiritual songs> b. ecclesiastical rather than lay or temporal <spiritual authority> <lords spiritual> 3. concerned with religious values 4. related or joined in spirit <our spiritual home> <his spiritual heir> 5. a. of or relating to supernatural beings or phenomena b. of, relating to, or involving spiritualism ; spiritualistic • spiritually adverb • spiritualness noun II. noun Date: 1582 1. plural things of a spiritual, ecclesiastical, or religious nature 2. a religious song usually of a deeply emotional character that was developed especially among blacks in the southern United States 3. capitalized any of a party of 13th and 14th century Franciscans advocating strict observance of a rule of poverty for their order

Oxford Reference Dictionary

adj. & n. --adj. 1 of or concerning the spirit as opposed to matter. 2 concerned with sacred or religious things; holy; divine; inspired (the spiritual life; spiritual songs). 3 (of the mind etc.) refined, sensitive; not concerned with the material. 4 (of a relationship etc.) concerned with the soul or spirit etc., not with external reality (his spiritual home). --n. = Negro spiritual. Phrases and idioms: spiritual courts ecclesiastical courts. Derivatives: spirituality n. spiritually adv. spiritualness n. Etymology: ME f. OF spirituel f. L spiritualis (as SPIRIT)

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Spiritual Spir"it*u*al, n. A spiritual function, office, or affair. See Spirituality, 2. He assigns supremacy to the pope in spirituals, and to the emperor in temporals. --Lowell.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Spiritual Spir"it*u*al, a. [L. spiritualis: cf. F. spirituel. See Spirit.] 1. Consisting of spirit; not material; incorporeal; as, a spiritual substance or being. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. --1 Cor. xv. 44. 2. Of or pertaining to the intellectual and higher endowments of the mind; mental; intellectual. 3. Of or pertaining to the moral feelings or states of the soul, as distinguished from the external actions; reaching and affecting the spirits. God's law is spiritual; it is a transcript of the divine nature, and extends its authority to the acts of the soul of man. --Sir T. Browne. 4. Of or pertaining to the soul or its affections as influenced by the Spirit; controlled and inspired by the divine Spirit; proceeding from the Holy Spirit; pure; holy; divine; heavenly-minded; -- opposed to carnal. That I may impart unto you some spiritual gift. --Rom. i. ll. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings. --Eph. i. 3. If a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one. --Gal. vi. 1. 5. Not lay or temporal; relating to sacred things; ecclesiastical; as, the spiritual functions of the clergy; lords spiritual and temporal; a spiritual corporation. Spiritual coadjuctor. (Eccl.) See the Note under Jesuit. Spiritual court (Eccl. Law), an ecclesiastical court, or a court having jurisdiction in ecclesiastical affairs; a court held by a bishop or other ecclesiastic.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(spirituals) Frequency: The word is one of the 3000 most common words in English. 1. Spiritual means relating to people's thoughts and beliefs, rather than to their bodies and physical surroundings. She lived entirely by spiritual values, in a world of poetry and imagination. ? temporal ADJ • spiritually Our whole programme is spiritually oriented but not religious. ADV • spirituality ...the peaceful spirituality of Japanese culture. 2. Spiritual means relating to people's religious beliefs. The spiritual leader of Ireland's 3.7 million Catholics... = religious ? secular ADJ 3. A spiritual is a religious song of the type originally sung by black slaves in America. N-COUNT

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

spir'-it-u-al (pneumatikos, "spiritual," from pneuma, "spirit"): Endowed with the attributes of spirit. Any being made in the image of God who is a Spirit (Joh 4:24.), and thus having the nature of spirit, is a spiritual being.

(1) Spiritual hosts of wickedness (Eph 6:12), in distinction from beings clothed in "flesh and blood"--the devil and his angels. This use of the word has reference to nature, essence, and not to character or moral quality. God, angels, man, devil, demons are in essence spiritual. The groundwork and faculties of their rational and moral being are the same. This limited use of the word in the New Testament has its adverb equivalent in Re 11:8, "which (the great and wicked city) spiritually is called Sodom." As the comprehensive term moral includes immoral, so spiritual includes unspiritual and all that pertains to spirit.

(2) With the above exception, "spiritual" in the New Testament signifies moral, not physical antithesis: an essence springing from the Spirit of God and imparted to the spirit of man. Hence, spiritual in this sense always presupposes the infusion of the Holy Spirit to quicken, and inform. It is opposed

(a) to sarkikos, "fleshly" (1Co 3:1), men of the flesh and not of the spirit;

(b) to psuchikos, "natural," man in whom the pneuma, "spirit," is over-ridden, because of the Fall, by psuche, the principle of the animal life, "soul"; hence, the unrenewed man, unspiritual, alienated from the life of God (1Co 2:14; 2Pe 2:12; Jude 1:10). See MAN, NATURAL;

(c) to natural, meaning physical, ".... sown a natural body; .... raised a spiritual body" (1Co 15:44).

(3) In the New Testament and general use "spiritual" thus indicates man regenerated, indwelt, enlightened, endued, empowered, guided by the Holy Spirit; conformed to the will of God, having the mind of Christ, living in and led by the Spirit. The spiritual man is a new creation born from above (Ro 8:6; 1Co 2:15; 3:1; 14:37; Col 1:9; 1Pe 2:5).

(4) Ecclesiastically used of things sacred or religious, as spiritual authority, spiritual assembly, spiritual office.

See SPIRIT.

Dwight M. Pratt

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

a. 1. Immaterial, incorporeal, ethereal, ghostly. 2. Mental, intellectual, moral, ideal, abstract. 3. Holy, divine, pure, sacred. 4. Ecclesiastical.

Moby Thesaurus

Christlike, Christly, God-fearing, Negro spiritual, affective, airy, angelic, anthem, arcane, asomatous, astral, automatist, awesome, awful, bodiless, cantata, canticle, cerebral, characteristic, chorale, church, church music, churchly, clairaudient, clairsentient, clairvoyant, clerical, conceptive, conceptual, constitutional, decarnate, decarnated, devotional, discarnate, disembodied, dispositional, divine, doxology, ecclesiastical, ectoplasmic, eerie, elevated, emotional, endopsychic, esoteric, ethereal, etheric, extramundane, extrasensory, extraterrestrial, fey, ghostish, ghostlike, ghostly, ghosty, godlike, godly, godly-minded, good, gospel, gospel music, heady, heavenly, high, high-minded, holy, holy-minded, hymn, hymn-tune, hymnody, hymnology, hypernormal, hyperphysical, immaterial, impalpable, imponderable, incorporate, incorporeal, ineffable, inenarrable, inexpressible, innate, inner, insubstantial, intangible, intellectual, intelligent, internal, introit, inviolable, inviolate, lofty, mass, mediumistic, mental, metaphysical, motet, mysterious, noetic, nonmaterial, nonphysical, noological, numinous, occult, offertory, offertory sentence, oratorio, otherworldly, paean, passion, phantasmal, phantasmic, phantom, phantomic, phantomlike, phrenic, preterhuman, preternatural, preternormal, pretersensual, priestly, prosodion, psalm, psalmody, psychic, psychical, psychokinetic, psychologic, psychological, psychosensory, pure, pure in heart, purehearted, rational, reasoning, recessional, religious, requiem, requiem mass, righteous, sacerdotal, sacred, sacred music, sacrosanct, saintlike, saintly, second-sighted, seraphic, shadowy, specterlike, spectral, spiritual-minded, spiritualistic, subjective, superhuman, supernatural, supernormal, superphysical, supersensible, supersensual, supramundane, supranatural, telekinetic, telepathic, temperamental, thinking, transcendental, transmundane, unearthly, unembodied, unextended, unfleshly, unhuman, unphysical, unspeakable, unsubstantial, untouchable, unutterable, unworldly, venerable, white spiritual, wraithlike, wraithy