a. [f. prec. + -AL.]
1. Of or pertaining to the firmament.
1600. Dr. Dodypoll, I. i., in Bullen, O. Pl., III. 100.
| Looke on the heavens colour’d with golden starres, | |
| The firmamentall ground of it all blew. |
1621. Burton, Anat. Mel., III. iv. I. V. If there be infinite planetary and firmamental worlds, as some will, there be infinite genii or commanding spirits belonging to each of them.
1657. Cokaine, Obstinate Lady, II. i. He was an intricate Prognosticator of firmamental Eclipses, and vaticinated future occurrents by the mysterious influences of the sublime Starres, and vagabundical Planets.
1869. Tyndall, in Fortn. Rev., 1 Feb., 240–1. In order to obtain the most perfect polarisation of the firmamental light, the sky must be regarded in a direction at right angles to the solar beams.
1874. T. Hardy, Madding Crowd, II. vii. 81. Manœuvres of a most extraordinary kind were going on in the vast firmamental hollows overhead.
† b. Alchemy. Firmamental water: liquid as pure as the firmament; app. rectified Aqua Vitæ.
1559. Morwyng, trans. The Treasure of Euonymus, 96–7. These … unquiet the body, and make disceitful image and likelines of youth: the firmamentall water dothe it in dede.
[1666. Dryden, Ann. Mirab., 281.
| An hollow crystal pyramid he takes, | |
| In firmamental waters dipt above; | |
| Of it a broad extinguisher he makes, | |
| And hoods the flames that to their quarry drove.] |
2. Of the nature of a supporting framework or permanent substratum; cf. FIRMAMENT 3.
1696. Brookhouse, Temple Opened, 40. The Flesh is the Incremental or Changeable Part, and the Spirit the Firmamental or Immoveable Part, being God himself.
1825. Coleridge, Lit. Rem. (1836), II. 357, note. The earth as Vesta, as the firmamental law that sustains and disposes the apparent world!
