spiritual

Pluralspirituals

1. 1
   adjective

   About a person's spirit or soul, not their body.

   She felt a deep spiritual peace after walking quietly in the mountains.

   He says music meets his spiritual needs more than anything else does.

   Similarinner

   Oppositematerial, physical, worldly

   Note
2. 2
   adjective

   Connected with God, religion, or holy things.

   The family asked the priest for spiritual guidance after the funeral.

   Pilgrims travel for weeks to reach the shrine because it is a spiritual place.

   Similarreligious, devotional, sacred, holy

   Oppositesecular, profane

   Note
3. 3
   adjective

   Connected with ghosts, spirits, or things beyond the natural world.

   Some villagers believe spiritual beings live in the old forest.

   She says the strange noises in the house come from a spiritual presence.

   Similarsupernatural, otherworldly, unearthly

   Oppositephysical, earthly

4. 4
   adjective

   Made of spirit, not of physical material. You cannot touch it.

   Like the wind: it is real, but you cannot hold it in your hands.

   She believes the soul is spiritual and cannot be seen or touched.

   In the story, the ghost is spiritual, so it has no body to touch.

   Similarimmaterial, incorporeal, bodiless, disembodied

   Oppositematerial, physical, corporeal

   Note
5. 5
   nouncountable

   A religious song, especially one first sung by African Americans, or a similar song that is not religious.

   The choir sang a spiritual at the end of the service.

   Her grandmother taught her the spirituals she had learned as a child.

   Note
6. 6
   adjective

   Belonging to the church and its leaders, not to ordinary or government life.

   In the Middle Ages, spiritual courts judged priests instead of the king's courts.

   The bishop handled spiritual questions, while the king's officers handled taxes and land.

   Similarecclesiastical, clerical

   Oppositetemporal, secular, lay

   Note
7. 7
   adjective

   Connected with the mind and its higher powers, such as thinking and understanding.

   His teachers said that reading good books would build his spiritual powers, like memory and reason.

   For her, music speaks to the spiritual side of a person, the part that thinks and dreams.

   Similarintellectual, mental

   Oppositebodily, physical

8. 8
   nouncountable

   A church duty or matter, not an everyday or government one.

   Long ago, choosing a new priest was a spiritual, so the king could not decide it.

   The bishop took care of the spirituals of the church, and the lord took care of the land.

   Note

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