ether

«ether» in Mova's school dictionary: A colourless liquid with a strong smell that evaporates… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 3 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

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 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

• 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

• Until 1846, when ether was shown working in Boston, most surgery was done on patients who were awake.
• Libnah, and Ether, and Ashan;
• Ain, Rimmon, and Ether, and Ashan; four cities with their villages;

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «ether» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.