ether

noun

1. (broadly, countable, literary, poetic, uncountable)The substance formerly supposed to fill the upper regions of the atmosphere above the clouds, in particular as a medium breathed by deities.

   “On Wings the Birds through Æther glide, / And Fiſhes cut with Fins the Tide.”

   “Of the mysterious world, that come to me From the elements of Fire and Earth and Water, And the all-nourishing Ether!”

2. (broadly, countable, literary, poetic, uncountable)The substance formerly supposed to fill the upper regions of the atmosphere above the clouds, in particular as a medium breathed by deities.

   “Take a snapshot of the conflicts around the world: Sunnis vs. Shiites, Israelis vs. Palestinians, Serbs vs. Kosovars, Indians vs. Pakistanis. They seem to be driven by religious hatred. It’s enough to make you wonder if the animosity would melt away if all religions were suddenly, somehow, to vanish into the ether. But James Carse doesn’t see them as religious conflicts at all. To him, they are battles over rival belief systems, which may or may not have religious overtones.”

   “In barely the blink of an eye, the perfectly healthy Judy entered a permanent vegetative state. […] What haunted me was the idea that one moment you’re gazing at your 2-year-old in her playroom and the next, you, the mother, have been whisked off into the ether forever.”

   “There’s a very real chance that, rather than crumbling into the dust and floating off into the ether, Thanos’s victims [in the film Avengers: Infinity War] were actually sucked up into the Soul Stone.”

3. (historical, uncountable)Often as aether and more fully as luminiferous aether: The hypothetical substance permeating space, functioning as a medium for electromagnetic waves to propagate through, and which does not exert resistance to the movement of matter; its existence is incompatible with Einstein's theory of relativity; famously found to be undetectable by the 1887 Michelson–Morley experiment.

   “I ſuppose this æther pervades all groſs bodies, but yet ſo as to ſtand rarer in their pores than in free ſpaces, and ſo much the rarer, as their pores are leſs. And this I ſuppose (with others) to be the cauſe, why light incident on thoſe bodies is refracted towards the perpendicular; […] I ſuppose the rarer æther within bodies, and then denſer without them, not to be terminated in a mathematical ſuperficies, but to grow gradually into one another; […]”

   “The whole matter of the univerſe may be divided into atoms and æther. […] The latter, æther, is a ſubtile elaſtic fluid, whoſe particles have a continual tendency to ſeparate or fly off every way, unleſs impreſſed by ſome body: This æther ſurrounds each atom like an atmoſphere, and preſſes equally towards the center of each.”

   “"The ether. The earth browses upon a circular path in the fields of space, and as it moves the ether is continually pouring through it and providing its vitality."”

4. (colloquial, uncountable)The atmosphere or space as a medium for broadcasting radio and television signals; also, a notional space through which Internet and other digital communications take place; cyberspace.

   “H. P. Lovecraft, At the Mountains of Madness He held some friendly chat with Pabodie over the ether, and repeated his praise of the really marvelous drills that had helped him make his discovery.”

   “Now we are liberal with our innermost secrets, spraying them into the public ether with a generosity our forebears could not have imagined. Where we once sent love letters in a sealed envelope, or stuck photographs of our children in a family album, now such private material is despatched to servers and clouds operated by people we don't know and will never meet.”

5. (colloquial, uncountable)A particular quality created by or surrounding an object, person, or place; an atmosphere, an aura.

   “The luminous æther of his life was not obſcured by any ſhade dark enough to be denominated a defect.”

6. (uncountable)Diethyl ether (C₄H₁₀O), an organic compound with a sweet odour used in the past as an anaesthetic.

   “But the moſt valuable Qualities of the ÆTHER are it's medicinal ones; it having been found by repeated Experience to be an excellent Remedy in moſt nervous Diſeaſes; particularly in Fits of all ſorts, whether Epileptic, Convulſive, Hyſteric, Hypochondriac, or Paralytic: […]”

   “The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge.”

7. (countable)Any of a class of organic compounds containing an oxygen atom bonded to two hydrocarbon groups.

   “M. Malaguti finds that dry chlorine, while acting in the dark upon oxacid æthers, always attacks, and in a uniform manner, the sulphuric æther which is the base of them. […] The action of potash on the compound chloridized æthers is also constant and uniform: the results are always chloride of potassium, acetate of potash, and an organic salt with a base of potash, the acid of which is that which existed in the compound chloridized æther.”

   “When chlorine gas is passed in excess through salicylic ether (salicylae of ethyl) heated over a water-bath, a solid substance is formed which is soluble in hot alcohol, and crystallizes, on cooling, in beautiful colourless tables. This compound is bichloruretted salicylic ether, formed from salicylic ether (C₁₈H₁₀O₆) by the substitution of 2 eq. chlorine for 2 eq. hydrogen: its composition is therefore C₁₈H₈Cl₂O₆.”

   “[…] I allude to the æthers formed by the union of fatty acids with different alcohols. […] With regard to the fatty æthers themselves, I prepared them generally by M. Berthelot's method, by heating the alcohol and the acid for a day at 392°F. in a tube hermetically sealed; the product was mixed with a little æther, and it was digested some time with slaked lime in the water-bath, to separate the free acid from the neutral compound.”

   “An old man to whom a few drops of phosphoric ether had been administered experienced repeated and imperious venereal wants.”

8. (uncountable)Starting fluid.
9. (alt-of)Alternative letter-case form of Ether.

   “Gas is not ether–it's a separate virtual currency with its own exchange rate against ether.”

10. A unit of the Ethereum digital currency, ETH.

    “After more than 30 bids, the auction ended at 12:32 p.m. Eastern time, with a winning bid of 350 Ether, or about $560,000.”

verb

1. (slang, transitive)To viciously humiliate or insult.

   “The battle rapper ethered his opponent and caused him to slink away in shame.”

   “HS Coach Gets Ethered By Girlfriend On FB, Resigns Amid Investigation [article title] […] On Monday, a woman living in Bowling Green, Ky., used her Facebook page to unleash one of the coldest, boyfriend-crushingest Dear John letters you'll ever read.”

   “Cory Barker: Game of Thrones is the easiest answer for me, but MaryAnn [Sleasman] did a fine job of ethering that overrated hunk of junk, so I'm free to take a few shots at Sherlock.”

   “Best of all, [Steven] Soderbergh, a shade queen of our time!!!, slyly ethers James Cameron: […]”

   “On Wednesday, I found myself nodding along vigorously to the latest Kanye West Twitter screed, as this particular iteration included a call for more inclusion at the Grammys and one extremely polite ethering of Macklemore.”

2. (UK, alt-of, alternative, dialectal)Alternative form of edder.

   “Ether and Ethers (rhyme to whether)—the operation of running a line of hazle or other flexible wands intertwiningly along the top of a hedge, to keep it more firmly within the hedge-stakes. "Mind you ether it right strong." To "bond" a hedge has the same meaning.”

   “In the edition of 1760 of "The Complete Angler" there is a curious quotation from Bowlker, who was a great authority on fish-ponds, in which he recommends:— "When you intend to stick a pool with carp or tench, make a close ethering hedge across the head of the pool about a yard distance of the dam, and about three foot above the water, which is the best refuge for them I know of, and the only method to preserve pool-fish; […] "”

   “The labourer still sits under the lew (hleow, or "hleowð," shelter, warmth) of the hedge, which has has been ethering ("eðer," a hedge); […]”

   “[…] and he must first ascertain its [the hedge's] length, which will give him an idea of the number of stakes and ethering rods required.”

name

1. (Roman)The god-personification of the bright, glowing upper air of heaven. He is the Roman counterpart of Aether.
2. (Mormonism)The ancient American prophet of Mormon theology who wrote the Book of Ether in the Book of Mormon.