English

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Etymology

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From un- +‎ worldly.

Adjective

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unworldly (comparative unworldlier, superlative unworldliest)

  1. Exceeding what is typically found in the world; exceptional, transcendent.
  2. Characterising people who are unconcerned with worldly matters; spiritually minded.
    • 1872, George Eliot, Middlemarch, Book II, chapter 17:
      ‘But a good wife—a good unworldly woman—may really help a man, and keep him more independent.’
    • 1982 August 28, “Personal advertisement”, in Gay Community News, volume 10, number 7, page 18:
      I am an aspiring theological writer-artist, Alien Christian Mystic, unworldly, contemplative.
  3. Not belonging to this world; celestial.
    • 1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 35:
      This creature from a higher world has not forgotten all that he knew before; he retains his unworldly talents and supreme intelligence.
  4. Lacking sophistication.
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Translations

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