otherworldly

adj

1. Of, concerned with, or preoccupied with a world different from the tangible world, especially a fantasy, imaginary, or mystical world.

   “In Just My Type: A Book about Fonts (2010) Simon Garfield describes [Edward] Johnston as 'a gaunt fine-boned man with a full moustache', and there's a picture of him at work with a quill pen that makes him look as other-worldly as a medieval sprite.”

   “The bull kelp forests off Northern California are sometimes spoken of as the redwoods of the sea. And like the redwoods, these forests are in danger. In less than a decade, these otherworldly undersea landscapes, lush with life, have all but disappeared along 200 miles of coast north of San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge.”

2. (figuratively)Of, concerned with, or preoccupied with a world different from the tangible world, especially a fantasy, imaginary, or mystical world.

   “He had not seen cricket played since the war began; it seemed almost other-worldly, with the click of the bats, and the shrill young voices, under the distant drone of that sky-hornet threshing along to Hendon.”

   “An almost otherworldly resilience has characterized the 40-year arc of the Clintons' political lives, a well-documented pattern of dazzling success, shattering setback and inevitable recovery.”

   “"Hey, Rick." / "Oh, hey, kiddo. How's your Saturday?" / "You know, super chill. W-W-Whatcha doin'?" / "Eh, nothing adventurous. You know that race of Underground Dwelling Cannibal Horse People that we're always fighting?" / "Yeah, the CHUDs. W-W-What about 'em?" / "Well, don't tell anybody, but I'm working on a bioweapon to use against them, so I got this barrel of horse semen from your mom's hospital and I'm just gonna, you know, subject it to some otherworldly forces."”

   “The sudden inundation from the remnants of Ida transformed familiar scenes of life in New York into otherworldly and waterlogged chaos on Wednesday night.”

   “"David [Bowie] used to say he would sell his soul to be famous," she says. "But he was also otherworldly – and you couldn’t take your eyes off him."”

3. Of, concerned with, or preoccupied with spiritual matters.

   “Every religion that becomes ascendant, in so far as it is not other-worldly, must necessarily set its stamp upon the methods and administration of the law.”

   “[Leo] Tolstoy was not a saint, but he tried very hard to make himself into a saint, and the standards he applied to literature were other-worldly ones.”

   “[Simphiwe] Dana has the otherworldly temperament of a mystic.”

4. (broadly, obsolete, rare)Of or relating to the imagination or intellect.

   “It is easy with the other-worldly gifts to be a schöne Seele [beautiful soul]; but to the large vision of [Johann Wolfgang von] Goethe that seemed to be a phase of life that a man might feel all round and leave behind him.”