a. [UN-1 7.]
1. Rising above what is characteristic of earth; exalted, sublime; celestial.
1611. Shaks., Wint. T., III. i. 7. O, the Sacrifice. How ceremonious, solemne, and vn-earthly It was i’ th’ Offring!
1795. Coleridge, Refl. Place of Retirem., 24. The inobtrusive song of Happiness, Unearthly minstrelsy!
1855. Brimley, Ess. (1858), 304. [An] almost unearthly intensity of faith, love, and resignation.
1876. H. W. Pullen, Mod. Christianity, 73. Having made choice of an unearthly Guide, you should be content to follow Him along unearthly paths.
2. Not belonging to this earth; supernatural, mysterious, ghostly. (Cf. Sc. wanearthly.)
a. 1802. Tamlane, xxxv., in Scott, Minstrelsy. How shall I thee knaw Amang so many unearthly knights?
1828. Lytton, Pelham, II. x. A mysterious and unearthly communion of the soul with the beings of another world.
1871. L. Stephen, Playgr. Eur., ii. 82. There is something almost unearthly in the sight of enormous spaces of hill and plain.
b. Of sounds or voices.
1808. Scott, Marm., II. Introd. In the bittern’s distant shriek, I heard unearthly voices speak.
1846. Mrs. A. Marsh, Father Darcy, II. xi. 183. The unearthly sound … immediately ceased.
1890. ‘R. Boldrewood,’ Col. Reformer (1891), 150. The half-heard music is full of unearthly cadences.
c. colloq. Not appropriate to anything earthly; absurdly early or inconvenient.
1865. Mrs. Carlyle, Lett. (1883), III. 267. Your starting from the Gill at an unearthly hour.
1891. Mrs. Riddell, Mad Tour, 63. In the streets of Cologne at that unearthly hour in the morning.
