sublime means an unincorporated community in Lavaca County, Texas, United States. It carries an Arena rating of 1666, earned across 63 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, sublime ranks #308 of 42,762 for Qualifying, #475 of 17,134 for Most Malleable Words, #2,384 of 17,127 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #2,831 of 17,132 for Most Betrayed by Its Sound.
sublime is pronounced /səˈblaɪm/.
Why “sublime” is a great word
Of such excellence, grandeur, or beauty as to inspire great admiration or awe. From the Latin sublīmis (“uplifted, lofty”), from sub- (“up to”) + a root related to līmen (“threshold, lintel”), first attested in English in the 1580s. Unlike “glorious,” which implies radiant, triumphant splendor, or “splendid,” which suggests sumptuous visual brilliance, the sublime carries an unsettling weight—it is beauty that borders on terror, the threshold where exaltation meets annihilation. It is the dizzying void at the edge of a precipice, the silent, star-choked desert of the night sky, and the terrible, beautiful violence of a storm at sea—an encounter not with mere magnificence, but with the profound and humbling scale of an existence that swallows the self whole.
Etymology
Partly from the following: * From Middle English sublimen, sublime, sublyme (“to exalt, extol, glorify, honour; (alchemy) to refine (a substance) by vaporizing in a closed container; to obtain (a substance) by cooling vapour obtained through sublimation; to extract (a pure substance) from a mixture by sublimation; to sublimate (a substance)”), from Middle French sublimer, Old French sublimer (“to exalt, glorify, honour; to refine (a substance) by vaporizing in a closed container; of a substance: to undergo sublimation”) (modern French sublimer), and from its etymon Latin sublīmāre, the present active infinitive of sublimō (“to elevate, raise; to soar”) (compare Late Latin sublimō (“to elevate, raise; to exalt, glorify, honour; to sublimate, vaporize”)), from sublīmis (“elevated, raised; ex
name
- An unincorporated community in Lavaca County, Texas, United States.
verb
- Synonym of sublimate.; To heat (a substance) in a container so as to convert it into a gas which then condenses in solid form on cooler parts of the container; (generally) to change (a solid substance) into a gas without breaking down or passing through the liquid state by heating it gently.
- Synonym of sublimate.; To obtain or purify (a substance) in this manner.
- To raise (someone or an intangible thing) to a state of (especially moral or spiritual) excellence; to exalt.
- To cause (someone or something) to ascend; to raise (someone or something) to a high position.
- To cause (juice or sap) to rise in a plant.
- Especially of the sun: to heat (something) and cause vapours, etc., to rise from it.
- To purify (someone) from a bad influence or from sin.
- To raise (someone) to a high office or status; to dignify, to exalt.
- To raise (a physical thing) to a state of excellence; to improve.e.g.“[I]t [bread used for communion] is made 'sacramental and eucharistical,' and so it is sublimed to become the body of Christ. But it is natural food still, […]” — 1653 (indicated as 1654), “The Real Presence and Spiritual of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, Proved against the Doctrine of Transubstantiation. Section V. Subject Continued [Of the Words of Institut
- Synonym of sublimate.; Of a substance: to change from a solid into a gas without passing through the liquid state, with or without being heated.
- Synonym of sublimate.; Of a substance: to change from a gas into a solid without passing through the liquid state.
- To become higher in quality or status; to improve.
adj
- High, tall, towering; also, positioned in a high place; high-up, lofty.
- Of an aspect of art or nature: causing awe or deep respect due to its beauty or magnificence; awe-inspiring, impressive.e.g.“sublime scenery”
- Of flight: ascending, soaring.
- Of an idea or other thing: requiring great intellectual effort to appreciate or understand; very elevated, refined, or subtle.
- Of language, style, or writing: expressing opinions in a grand way.
- Of a person or their actions or qualities: intellectually, morally, or spiritually superior.e.g.“a sublime deed”
- Of an office or status: very high; exalted; also, used as an honorific (often capitalized as Sublime) to refer to someone of high office or status, especially the Ottoman sultan; or to things associated with such a person.e.g.“the Sublime Porte”
- Of a thing: consummate, perfect; (informal, loosely) excellent, marvellous, wonderful.
- Of a person: dignified, majestic, noble.e.g.“the sublime Julian leader” — 1842, Thomas De Quincey, “Cicero”, in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine:
- Of a person: haughty, proud.e.g.“countenance sublime and insolent” — 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book V, Canto VIII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 30:
- Complete, downright, utter.e.g.“He is behaving like a sublime idiot.”
- Elevated by joy; elated.
- Of a substance: purified, refined; hence, of the highest quality.
- Of arms: lifted up, raised.
- Of a muscle (especially the flexor digitorum superficialis muscle of the forearm which lies above the flexor digitorum profundus muscle): positioned above another muscle; superficial.
noun
- Something which is sublime; a sublimity.
- In the form the sublime of: the highest degree; the acme, the height.
- Chiefly preceded by the.; An aspect of art or nature which causes awe or deep respect due to its beauty or magnificence; hence, the great beauty or magnificence of a place, a thing, etc.
- Chiefly preceded by the.; A style of language or writing which expresses opinions in a grand way.
- Chiefly preceded by the.; That which is intellectually, morally, or spiritually superior in human life or human nature.
- The quality or state of being sublime; sublimeness, sublimity.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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