empyrean

noun

1. (historical)The highest heaven, supposed by the ancients to be a region of pure light and fire or else composed of ether, and sometimes seen as the dwelling-place of God or other divine beings; the highest celestial sphere according to ancient and medieval astronomy.

   “So ſung they, and the Empyrean rung, With Halleluiahs: […]”

   “Perchance they mark Where India's cliffs the trembling cloud invade, Or Andes with his fiery banner flouts The empyrean,...”

   “Milton, a name to resound for ages; / Whose titan angels, Gabriel, Abdiel, / Starr'd from Jehovah's gorgeous armouries, / Tower, the deep-domed empyrëan / Rings to the roar of an angel onset— […]”

   “I could have spoken in blank verse of Shakesperian beauty, all sorts of great ideas flashed through my mind; it was as though the bonds of my flesh had been loosened and left the spirit free to soar to the empyrean of its native power.”

   “Her vulgar cares were at an end. She would be able to arrange her life as she pleased, to soar into that empyrean of security where creditors cannot penetrate.”

adj

1. (not-comparable)Of the sky or the heavens, and particularly relating to the highest celestial sphere in premodern cosmology; celestially refined.

   “In th' Empyrean Heaven, (the bleſs'd Abode) / The Thrones and the Dominions proſtrate lie, / Not daring to behold their angry God: / And an huſh'd ſilence damps the tuneful sky.”

   “Yet upward she [the goddess] incessant flies; Resolv’d to reach the high empyrean Sphere.”

   “Lispings empyrean will I sometime teach / Thine honied tongue— […]”

   “[…] it was like those gods of Epicurus, who saw the doings of men from their empyrean heights and had no might to alter one smallest particle of what occurred.”