Celestial City
- noun
- Archaic
:
Ciudad Celestial
- In John Bunyan's 'Pilgrim's Progress', the protagonist's journey ends in the Celestial City, symbolizing the ultimate reward for the faithful.
Examples
-
She remembered listening wide-eyed to the story as a child, captivated on a simple literal level by the story of little Christian's heroic journey to the Celestial City.
Fiction book (1995) -
Many readers find the descriptions of the Celestial City in 'Pilgrim's Progress' to be a beautiful representation of heaven.
-
The idea of the Celestial City serves as a powerful metaphor for hope and salvation in many literary works.
Synonyms
941
1.1
A place many religions believe God lives and good people go after death
77
4.0
A perfect, happy place where good people go after death
1
8.3
A holy place where people believe God and the blessed live after death
1
8.8
A sacred, perfect place like Heaven where God lives, often in Christian writing
A perfect, peaceful place often shown as a beautiful city in religious writing
Surface Forms
Morphology
celestial + City
The phrase combines 'celestial' (heavenly, concerning heaven) with 'city' (an urban place), so a learner who knows both constituents can infer a ‘heavenly city’ or city of heaven. Although literary and specific to works like Pilgrim's Progress, the meaning is compositionally derived rather than idiomatic, making it transparent to someone who knows the words.
Etymology
Celestial City comes from John Bunyan's book 'Pilgrim's Progress', where people travel toward a bright, shining city in the sky and the word celestial gives the sense of something from the heavens. So the phrase now means 'Heaven' or the perfect home for good people.