Word of the Day
: October 1, 2025preternatural
playWhat It Means
Preternatural is a formal adjective used to describe things that are very unusual in a way that does not seem natural.
// He has a preternatural knack for imitating birdcalls.
// There was an eerie, preternatural quiet in the house.
preternatural in Context
"Beyond his physical and mental attributes, [Jayden] Daniels has a preternatural calm in the most pivotal moments of a drive, a game, and a season that makes you wonder if he's somehow been in the NFL for 10 years." — Doug Farrar, The Guardian (London), 21 Jan. 2025
Did You Know?
Preternatural comes from the Latin phrase praeter naturam, meaning "beyond nature." Medieval Latin scholars rendered this as praeternaturalis, and that form inspired the modern English word. Things beyond nature—i.e., very unusual things—can be alarming, and in its earliest documented uses in the late 1500s, preternatural was applied to strange, ominous, or abnormal phenomena, from works of God to signs of illness and disease. But by the 1800s things were looking up for preternatural, with the word describing remarkable abilities of exceptional humans, as it most often does today.
Test Your Vocabulary with M-W Quizzes
Quiz
Unscramble the letters to create a word with meanings that range from "ideal" to "absurd" to "weird" to preternatural": AHLNEUTYR.
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