Word of the Day

: October 10, 2024

numinous

adjective NOO-muh-nus

What It Means

Numinous is a formal, often literary, word that typically describes things that have a mysterious or spiritual quality. It can also describe something holy or something that appeals to one's aesthetic sense.

// We were overcome by the numinous atmosphere of the catacombs.

// The artist's sculptures dominate the space, their numinous presence welcoming museum-goers to a foreign world.

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numinous in Context

“The breakthrough for me was the idea of embedding the hymnlike harmonies of Charles Ives’s sublime ‘The Unanswered Question’ within my music. Ives gives this hushed hymn to a string orchestra, playing pianississimo throughout. A lone trumpet, seeming to come from another planet, asks ‘the question’ repeatedly—five notes without a text but full of numinous meaning.” — John Adams, The New Yorker, 4 Dec. 2023

Did You Know?

When people of the 1600s were ruminating on an adjective to reflect their awe of the mystical and supernatural elements of their experiences, they gave the nod to numinous, and quite aptly so. Numinous comes from the Latin word numen, which can mean both “a nod of the head” and “divine will,” the latter sense suggesting a figurative divine nod indicating approval or command. (English users were already using the noun numen, a direct borrowing from Latin, to refer to a spiritual force or influence associated with a particular place or phenomenon.) Numinous is not a common or everyday word, which seems fitting for one used to describe what is far from quotidian, and instead part of the realm of the spiritual, the holy, or the transcendent.