Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Define: Numinous

Numinous, from a footnote in Oliver Sacks' The Island of the Colorblind and Cycad Island.
Perhaps it is not to be wondered at that octopuses, with their remarkable intelligence, their huge eyes, and their ever-changing forms should excite a sense of awe, of the numinous. I have recently heard from a correspondent in Tasmania, Graeme Thompson, that in the Murray Islands off New Guinea there is also a creator-god, Malo, who is represented as an octopus, his eight tentacles representing eight tribes of the Merriam peoples on the three islands.

From Merriam-Webster:

Main Entry: nu·mi·nous
Function: adjective
Etymology: Latin numin-, numen numen
Date: 1647
1 : supernatural, mysterious
2 : filled with a sense of the presence of divinity : holy
3 : appealing to the higher emotions or to the aesthetic sense : spiritual

- nu·mi·nous·ness \-nəs\ noun

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