numinous

English

WOTD – 28 July 2018

Etymology

From Latin nūmen (“nod of the head; divine sway or will; divinity”) +‎ -ous (“suffix forming adjectives from nouns, denoting possession or presence of a quality”). Nūmen is believed to derive either from Latin *nuō (“to nod”) or from Ancient Greek νοούμενον (nooúmenon, “influence perceptible by the mind but not the senses”) (ultimately from νόος (nóos, “mind; thought; purpose”)).

Pronunciation

(Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈnjuːmɪnəs/
(General American) IPA^(key): /ˈn(j)umənəs/
Hyphenation: nu‧min‧ous
Audio (UK) (file)

Adjective

numinous (comparative more numinous, superlative most numinous)

Of or relating to a numen (divinity); indicating the presence of a divinity. [from mid 17th c.]
His interest in numinous objects led him on a quest for the Holy Grail.
- 1972, Burr Cartwright Brundage, “The Mexica Gain a King”, in A Rain of Darts: The Mexica Aztecs (Texas Pan American Series), Austin, Tx.; London: University of Texas Press, →ISBN, page 23:
  The fetish of Huitzilopochtli, bundled up and screened from profane eyes, now preceded the wandering group, carried on the back of his oracle-priest or sorcerer who alone was holy enough to handle safely the numinous object.
- 1976, Saul Bellow, Humboldt's Gift, New York: Avon, →ISBN, page 40:
  He held his own body in numinous esteem.
- 1981, C. Bennett Pascal, “October Horse”, in D[avid] R[oy] Shackleton Bailey, editor, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, →ISBN, page 278:
  The use of blood to instill numen into a thing is illustrated by the establishment and annual renewal of Terminus, the boundary marker […] The transfer of numinous power to persons has its example in the drinking of blood by seers in order to get oracular vision.
Evoking a sense of the mystical, sublime, or transcendent; awe-inspiring.
- 1647, Theodore de la Guard [pseudonym; Nathaniel Ward], The Simple Cobler of Aggawam in America. […], London: […] J[ohn] D[ever] & R[obert] I[bbitson] for Stephen Bowtell, […], OCLC 560031272; The Simple Cobler of Aggawam in America (Force’s Collection of Historical Tracts; vol. III, no. 8), 5th edition, Boston, Mass.: […] Daniel Henchman, […]; [Washington, D.C.: W. Q. Force], 1713 (1844 printing), OCLC 800593321, page 44:
  The Will of a King is very numinous; it hath a kind of vast universality in it, it is many times greater than the will of his whole Kingdom, stiffened with ill Counsel and ill Presidents: […]
- 1966, Thomas Pynchon, chapter 6, in The Crying of Lot 49, New York: Bantam Books, published 1976, →ISBN, page 136:
  Behind the hieroglyphic streets there would either be a transcendent meaning, or only the earth. In the songs Miles, Dean, Serge and Leonard sang was either some fraction of the truth's numinous beauty (as Mucho now believed) or only a power spectrum.
- 1971, Peter Brown, The World of Late Antiquity: From Marcus Aurelius to Muhammad (Library of European civilization), London: Thames and Hudson, →ISBN, page 154:
  [Justinian I] had the genius to realize the vast resources available to an east Roman emperor of the early sixth century — an almost numinous past history, a full treasury, an unrivalled supply of human talent in every field.
- 1996, Anne Bernays, “Introduction”, in Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], Merry Tales, New York, N.Y.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page xxxix:
  Is death closer than they think? [Samuel Langhorne] Clemens sets the scene with a numinous description of the men waiting in the corncrib in the "veiled moonlight."
- 2022, China Miéville, chapter 4, in A Spectre, Haunting: On the Communist Manifesto, OCLC 1331706453:
  A post-scarcity communism that doesn't dispense with all thoughts of the divine and numinous can't be precluded.

Derived terms

numinosity
numinously
numinousness

Related terms

numen
numinal

Translations

of or relating to a numen (divinity); indicating the presence of a divinity

Bulgarian: свръхестествен (bg) (svrǎhestestven)
Chinese:
Mandarin: 努秘 (nǔmì)
Danish: numinøse
French: numineux (fr) m
Galician: numinoso m
German: numinos (de)
Hungarian: numinózus
Italian: numinoso m, numinosa f
Japanese: ヌミノーゼ
Kurdish:
Northern Kurdish: giyanî (ku), pîroz (ku)
Latvian: numinoziškumas
Russian: нумино́зность (numinóznostʹ)
Serbo-Croatian: numinozan (sh) m, numinozna f, numinozno n
Spanish: numinoso

evoking a sense of the mystical — See also translations at awe-inspiring

German: numinos (de)
Serbo-Croatian: numinozan (sh) m, numinozna f, numinozno n