Metaphysical

How to spell metaphysical

12 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce metaphysical

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does metaphysical mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to abstract questions of existence and reality that go beyond the physical or scientific.
2. adjectiveDescribing a group of seventeenth-century English poets known for elaborate intellectual imagery and conceits.

Metaphysical in a sentence

• The lecture drifted into metaphysical questions about the nature of time.

• The course covered the metaphysical poets, including John Donne and George Herbert.

• Her essay drew a clear line between practical ethics and metaphysical speculation.

• His early sonnets show a clearly metaphysical style full of intricate conceits.

Where does metaphysical come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word reaches back to the Greek phrase ta meta ta physika, literally 'the things after the physics'. The phrase was originally an editorial label rather than a grand idea: ancient cataloguers of Aristotle's works placed his treatise on being and first principles immediately after his books on nature, the Physics, and so called it simply 'the one after the Physics'. Through medieval Latin metaphysica the term came to mean the study of what lies beyond the physical world, such as existence, time, and ultimate reality, and English adopted 'metaphysical' in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The spelling preserves both Greek parts intact, which is why the tricky middle vowels (the unstressed 'a' of meta and the 'y' of physical) so often trip writers. The same physis root, meaning 'nature', also gives us 'physics', 'physician', and 'physique'.

How the word is built

• meta- (beyond)
• physic (from Greek physika: natural things)
• -al (adjective suffix)