English Dictionary

ether

/ˈiː.θə/

noun

(by extension) The medium breathed by human beings; the air. / (by extension) The sky, the heavens; the void, nothingness.

Ether is a volatile and highly flammable liquid.

意味（1）

(by extension) The medium breathed by human beings; the air.

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

意味（2）

(by extension) The sky, the heavens; the void, nothingness.

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.

意味（3）

(uncountable, physics, historical) Often as aether and more fully as luminiferous aether: a substance once thought to fill all unoccupied space that allowed electromagnetic waves to pass through it and interact with matter, without exerting any resistance to matter or energy; its existence was disproved by the 1887 Michelson–Morley experiment and the theory of relativity propounded by Albert Einstein (1879–1955).

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; […]

意味（4）

(uncountable, colloquial) 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.

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.

意味（5）

(uncountable, colloquial) 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.

意味（6）

(uncountable, organic chemistry) 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: […]

意味（7）

(countable, organic chemistry) 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.

意味（8）

(uncountable) Starting fluid.