Why “preternaturally” is a great word
In a manner that surpasses the ordinary course of nature, operating at a level of extraordinary strangeness or ability. Formed within English from the adjective 'preternatural' (from Medieval Latin 'praeternātūrālis', from Latin 'praeter' ("beyond, past") + 'nātūrālis' ("natural")) + the adverbial suffix '-ly', first recorded in use circa 1580. Unlike "exceptionally," which suggests the upper limits of a known scale, or "supernaturally," which explicitly invokes divine or magical agency, "preternaturally" describes the unnerving, the uncannily advanced, that which exists in the unsettling margin just outside the map of the understood. It is the chill of a room that defies thermodynamics, the unsettling acuity of a child's insight, or the disquieting silence of a predator moving through underbrush—not a breach of the world's rules, but a demonstration that we never fully knew them.