spiritual
Americanadjective
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of, relating to, or consisting of spirit; incorporeal.
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of or relating to the spirit or soul, as distinguished from the physical nature.
a spiritual approach to life.
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closely akin in interests, attitude, outlook, etc..
the professor's spiritual heir in linguistics.
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of or relating to spirits or to spiritualists; supernatural or spiritualistic.
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characterized by or suggesting predominance of the spirit; ethereal or delicately refined.
She is more of a spiritual type than her rowdy brother.
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of or relating to the spirit as the seat of the moral or religious nature.
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of or relating to sacred things or matters; religious; devotional; sacred.
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of or belonging to the church; ecclesiastical.
lords spiritual and temporal.
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of or relating to the mind or intellect.
noun
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spirituals
plural
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a spiritual or religious song, especially one composed by and for Black Americans during the period of legalized slavery in the United States.
Spirituals like “Go Down, Moses” were sometimes used as signals on the Underground Railroad.
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spirituals, affairs of the church.
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a spiritual thing or matter.
adjective
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relating to the spirit or soul and not to physical nature or matter; intangible
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of, relating to, or characteristic of sacred things, the Church, religion, etc
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standing in a relationship based on communication between the souls or minds of the persons involved
a spiritual father
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having a mind or emotions of a high and delicately refined quality
noun
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See Negro spiritual
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(often plural) the sphere of religious, spiritual, or ecclesiastical matters, or such matters in themselves
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the realm of spirits
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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nonspiritualnessnoun
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spiritualnessnoun
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antispiritualadjective
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nonspiritualadjective
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pseudospiritualadjective
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quasi-spiritualadjective
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superspiritualadjective
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unspiritualadjective
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antispirituallyadverb
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nonspirituallyadverb
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pseudospirituallyadverb
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quasi-spirituallyadverb
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spirituallyadverb
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superspirituallyadverb
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unspirituallyadverb
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of spiritual
First recorded in 1275–1325; Middle English, from Medieval Latin spīrituālis, from Latin spīritu(s) spirit + -ālis -al 1
Explanation
Spiritual things are concerned with sacred matters or religion, affecting the spirit or the soul. Spiritual entities like ghosts lack a material body or substance. Spiritual is the adjective form of the word spirit, which comes from the Latin word for "breath," and means the thing that animates life. Spiritual can be used to talk about anything that goes beyond mere physical existence, from ghost spirits to religious feelings. As a noun, spiritual describes a religious song originating in the African-American culture of the American South.
Vocabulary lists containing spiritual
Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" Speech (1963)
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"Martin's Big Words: The Life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr." and "I Have a Dream"
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Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I have a dream" speech
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Your church must have brought a great sense of community and spiritual healing to that parishioner to give such a generous gift.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 29, 2026
Of course there was the spiritual talisman: late broadcaster Bob Uecker, a native Milwaukeean who followed his pedestrian playing career with a legendary run as the affable chorus in the booth.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 25, 2026
Its mega-churches offer not just a spiritual home but support with issues like childcare, employment advice and even food.
From BBC ● Oct. 24, 2026
After years of issues and complaints around the playing surface at cricket's spiritual home, those in charge have taken the drastic step to dig up one of its strips.
From BBC ● Oct. 21, 2026
By the 1920s, when Holmes was in the prime of his career, geology had slipped out of fashion–physics was the new excitement of the age–and had become severely underfunded, particularly in Britain, its spiritual birthplace.
From "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson
Field hollers, blues, ballads, spirituals, game songs, cowboy songs: these are among folk music’s many familiar forms.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 4, 2026
Orchestra for a prom that includes music by the Charleston-born composer Edmund Thornton Jenkins, one of the first people to introduce elements of jazz and spirituals into the classical repertoire.
From BBC ● Apr. 20, 2026
His mother was an avid singer of spirituals and a next-door neighbor, Lucy Jackson, helped Jones learn to tap out boogie-woogie on the keyboard.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 4, 2024
Her work “Bright Sadness” sets Orthodox liturgy to music based on African American spirituals.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 3, 2024
Mom was always going to thrift stores and coming back with old albums of polka music, Negro spirituals, German marching bands, Italian operas, and cattle roundup songs.
From "The Glass Castle" by Jeannette Walls
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
