ether
part of speech
noun (uncountable)
meaning for a pupil
1) (science) A colourless liquid with a strong smell that evaporates easily; it was used long ago to put patients to sleep for operations. tree →
2) (old science) An invisible substance that people once thought filled space and carried light; experiments showed it does not exist. tree →
3) (poetic) The clear sky or upper air. tree →
4) (informal) «Into the ether»: lost or disappeared, especially online or on the radio. tree →
sense in the lessons
In the Tanakh and Jewish tradition: In Sefer Yetzirah translations it means a fine, invisible element like air or spirit, from which other things come. In the Prophets Ether is also the name of a town. Interpretation: Some readers take Sefer Yetzirah to say that after God's spirit came air, then water, then fire, and ether was another name for this finer first substance. In Joshua, Ether is a city in the land given to the tribe of Simeon. In the primary lessons: In history of medicine, ether was one of the first anaesthetics, used from the 1840s. In science history, the idea of the ether is an example of a theory that was tested and dropped. In everyday talk, a message «vanished into the ether» means it was lost. Phrases: «into the ether», «over the ether».
examples
- First, Spirit (query Akasa, Ether) then (Sefer Yetzirah, Westcott 1893) tree →
- 4) Fire or ether emanated from the water. (Sefer Yetzirah, Kalisch 1877) tree →
- 15) According to the author, the space and six dimensions emanated from the ether. (Sefer Yetzirah, Kalisch 1877) tree →
- Ain, Rimmon, and Ether, and Ashan; four cities with their villages; (Prophets JOS.19.7, JPS 1917) tree →
- Doctors once used ether to put patients to sleep. tree →
- Ether evaporates very quickly. tree →
- Scientists once believed light travelled through the ether. tree →
- Experiments showed there was no ether. tree →
- My email just vanished into the ether. tree →
- Birds flew high in the blue ether. tree →
- They saw a blue smoke rising, writhing upward till it vanished in the blue ether. tree →
note
Uncountable. Pronounced «EE-ther». Can also be spelled «aether» for the old idea of space. Safety: ether is very flammable. Not the same as «either».
In the corpora
- Libnah, and Ether, and Ashan;
- Ain, Rimmon, and Ether, and Ashan; four cities with their villages;
- Until 1846, when ether was shown working in Boston, most surgery was done on patients who were awake.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «ether» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.