metaphysical
7
9.9
- adjective
- /ˌmɛtəˈfɪzɪkəl/
- Formal
:
abstracto
- In her essay, she argued that metaphysical concepts often disconnect from practical applications in daily life.
- metaphysical speculation
- metaphysical proposition
- metaphysical claim
It's not a metaphysical distinction at all, OK?
- It's not a metaphysical distinction at all, OK?
- She seemed to feel they were, well, not real enough, too metaphysical.
- And it's almost impossible to translate into English the word not as without sounding too ethereal, too metaphysical.
- If you're just kicking the metaphysical can all the way down the road.
Examples
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We spent the first half the semester, you might say, trying to get clear about the metaphysical facts.
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That seems to be a metaphysical question of a different sort, unless you defy true creativity as not being deterministic.
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Is this a metaphysical question?
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Except that there is nothing hard or metaphysical about this question at all.
Blog text (30) -
What we do is bring words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use.
Academic text (1991) -
The brain is a physical thing within the natural world, not a supernatural or metaphysical entity.
Academic text (1998) -
You know, cause that's more of a metaphysical question.
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His critique of pure reason called into question the abstract metaphysical claims of much current theoretical theology.
Academic text (1990) -
Well, that is clearly a metaphysical speculation... and like most metaphysical speculations... has very little reference at all... to the actual facts of real life as we know them.
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And for my money, many worlds is slipping into the Whirlpool of wild and constrained metaphysical nonsense about the nature of reality.
Synonyms
133
6.3
Relating to ideas and basic rules rather than practical use
16
8.0
A general idea not tied to a specific example
About ideas or general plans rather than practical details
Antonyms
How Abstract
Surface Forms
Morphology
metaphysical = metaphysic (semi-transparent) = meta + physical + al
The adjective is recognizably related to 'metaphysic', but the idiomatic sense 'overly theoretical' is a conventional extension rather than a fully compositional reading.
Etymology
Metaphysical also keeps the idea of being 'beyond' the physical, so it can describe ideas or arguments that are very abstract and not tied to everyday facts. That's why calling an argument metaphysical often means it is too theoretical to be practical.