empyrean

American  

[em-puh-ree-uhn, -pahy-, em-pir-ee-uhn, -pahy-ree-] / ˌɛm pəˈri ən, -paɪ-, ɛmˈpɪr i ən, -ˈpaɪ ri- /

noun

1. the highest heaven, supposed by the ancients to contain the pure element of fire.

2. the visible heavens; the firmament.

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adjective

1. empyreal.

empyrean British  

/ ˌɛmpaɪˈriːən /

noun

1. archaic the highest part of the (supposedly spherical) heavens, thought in ancient times to contain the pure element of fire and by early Christians to be the abode of God and the angels

2. poetic the heavens or sky

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adjective

1. of or relating to the sky, the heavens, or the empyrean

2. heavenly or sublime

3. archaic composed of fire

Etymology

Origin of empyrean

1605–15; < Late Latin empyre ( us ) empyreal + -an

Example Sentences

The Virgin is opening her arms, about to begin her rise through this nebulous, spiraling vortex toward heaven’s golden, empyrean light.

From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 9, 2026

No, this is the summit, the last line on the last page, the empyrean heights to which those dozen-and-a-half interviews have led.

From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 15, 2020

The blushing beauty of the Larghetto was haunted by Barenboim’s light keyboard touch and empyrean mood: he could have been summoning ghosts.

From The New Yorker • Feb. 3, 2017

That book’s eventual publication supposedly crowns Perkins’s ascension into the empyrean: “She is Walt and Emily and Herman and Tom and Wallace and Hilda and Gertrude all rolled into one.”

From Washington Post • Jun. 3, 2015

For the gatekeepers of heaven were to review him in state, that they might make their decision: Would this man be a credit to the empyrean?

From "Typical American" by Gish Jen