seraph

[ser-uhf]

noun

plural

seraphs, seraphim 

1. one of the celestial beings hovering above God's throne in Isaiah's vision. Isaiah 6.

2. a member of the highest order of angels, often represented as a child's head with wings above, below, and on each side.

seraph

/ ˈsɛrəf /

noun

1. theol a member of the highest order of angels in the celestial hierarchies, often depicted as the winged head of a child

2. Old Testament one of the fiery six-winged beings attendant upon Jehovah in Isaiah's vision (Isaiah 6)

Other Word Forms

• seraphlike adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of seraph¹

First recorded in 1660–70; back formation from seraphim

Word History and Origins

Origin of seraph¹

C17: back formation from plural seraphim, via Late Latin from Hebrew

Example Sentences

Supported by a flight of blue seraphim, God presides over an image of the entire world, which the artist has abstracted into concentric circles.

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Foul-mouthed seraph Ashnikko first strikes viewers with her long blue pigtails and ethereal humanoid beauty.

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He developed a style of writing that extended the seraphs of letters into arrows or dynamic vectors resembling missiles, rendering them all but illegible, except to the initiated.

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If the museum becomes a mosque, the mosaics will have to be covered during Muslim prayers somehow, including seraphs high up at the base of the dome.

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Her sister seraphim teach her that a woman without love is like an “angel without wings.”

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Related Words

• angelic 
• pious 
• upstanding