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   ether

   /ˈiːθə/

   noun

   • 1. a pleasant-smelling colourless volatile liquid that is highly flammable. It is used as an anaesthetic and as a solvent or intermediate in industrial processes.
   • ▪ any organic compound with a similar structure to ether, having an oxygen atom linking two alkyl or other organic groups: "methyl"
   • 2. the clear sky; the upper regions of air beyond the clouds: literary "nasty gases and smoke disperse into the ether"
   • ▪ air regarded as a medium for radio: informal "choral evensong still wafts across the ether"
   • 3. a very rarefied and highly elastic substance formerly believed to permeate all space, including the interstices between the particles of matter, and to be the medium whose vibrations constituted light and other electromagnetic radiation: archaic "the motion of the planets would be retarded by the ether through which they moved"

   Word Origin late Middle English: from Old French, or via Latin from Greek aithēr ‘upper air’, from the base of aithein ‘burn, shine’. Originally the word denoted a substance believed to occupy space beyond the sphere of the moon. ether (sense 3) arose in the mid 17th century and ether (sense 1) in the mid 18th century.

   Derivatives

   • 1. etheric adjective

   Scrabble Points: 8

   • E

     1

   • T

     1

   • H

     4

   • E

     1

   • R

     1

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