seraphic

• seraphical (archaic)

From Medieval Latin seraphicus, from Late Latin seraphīm, seraphīn, from Hebrew שָׂרָף‎ (saráf, “seraph”). Surface etymology seraph +‎ -ic.

• IPA^(key): /səˈɹæf.ɪk/
• Rhymes: -æfɪk
• Hyphenation: se‧raf‧ic

seraphic (comparative more seraphic, superlative most seraphic)

1. Of or relating to a seraph or the seraphim.

   the Seraphic Doctor, title given to the Italian medieval theologian Bonaventure

   • 1667, John Milton, “Book I”, in Paradise Lost. A Poem Written in Ten Books, London: Printed [by Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […] [a]nd by Robert Boulter […] [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], OCLC 228722708; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: The Text Exactly Reproduced from the First Edition of 1667: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, OCLC 230729554:

     , lines 536-539:

     Who forthwith from the glittering Staff unfurld / Th’ imperial Enſign, which full high advanc’t / Shon like a Meteor ſtreaming to the Wind / With Gemms and Golden luſtre rich imblaz’d, / Seraphic arms and Trophies : all the while / Sonorous metal blowing Martial ſounds […]

   • 1739, John Wesley, “God’s Greatness”, in Hymns and Sacred Poems, 4th edition, Bristol: Felix Farley (1743), page 108:

     Ye Hoſts that to his Courts belong, / Cherubic Quires, Seraphic Flames, / Awake the everlaſting Song.

2. Pure and sublime; angelic.
   • 1684, Aphra Behn, Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister, London: Randal Taylor, pp. 90-91,

     A thousand times he was like to have denyed all, but durst not defame the most sacred Idol of his Soul: Sometimes he thought his Uncle would be generous, and think it fit to give him Silvia; but that Thought was too Seraphick to remain a Moment in his Heart.

   • 1782, Thomas Pennant, The Journey from Chester to London, London: B. White, Part 2, p. 407,

     Their passion seems to have been of the seraphic kind. She devoted herself to religion, and persuaded him to do the same.

   • 1864, Robert Browning, “Gold Hair” in Dramatis Personæ, London: Chapman & Hall, p. 27,

     Too white, for the flower of life is red;

     Her flesh was the soft, seraphic screen

     Of a soul that is meant (her parents said)

     To just see earth, and hardly be seen,

     And blossom in Heaven instead.

   • 1958, T. H. White, The Once and Future King, London: Collins, 1959, Chapter 5,

     She had a seraphic smile on her face.

   • 2012, Paul Lester, “Schoolboy Q (No 1,193),” The Guardian, 25 January, 2012,

     So instead of Tesfaye’s seraphic warble, Hanley offers earthier, gruffer tones: you get the impression, considering the casual sexism and more conventional machismo on display here, that the rarefied, stylised and feminised would be unacceptable in his world.

• aspheric, charpies, parchesi, sphæric