otherworldly

Definition

Of, concerned with, or preoccupied with a world different from the tangible world, especially a fantasy, imaginary, or mystical world.

Etymology

From other world (“a world beyond death; a world other than the everyday world”) + -ly (suffix meaning having the likeness of, resembling forming adjectives).

Example Sentences

• "In Just My Type: A Book about Fonts (2010) Simon Garfield describes [Edward] Johnston as 'a gaunt fine-boned man with a full moustache', and there's a picture of him at work with a quill pen that makes him look as other-worldly as a medieval sprite."
• "The bull kelp forests off Northern California are sometimes spoken of as the redwoods of the sea. And like the redwoods, these forests are in danger. In less than a decade, these otherworldly undersea landscapes, lush with life, have all but disappeared along 200 miles of coast north of San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge."
• "He had not seen cricket played since the war began; it seemed almost other-worldly, with the click of the bats, and the shrill young voices, under the distant drone of that sky-hornet threshing along to Hendon."