ether

noun9

1. •
   (literary) The substance formerly supposed to fill the upper regions of the atmosphere above the clouds, in particular as a medium breathed by deities.
2. •
   (literary) The medium breathed by human beings; the air.

   • On Wings the Birds through Aether glide, / And Fishes cut with Fins the Tide. — 1746
3. •
   (literary) The sky, the heavens; the void, nothingness.

   • There’s a very real chance that, rather than crumbling into the dust and floating off into the ether, Thanos’s victims [in the film Avengers: Infinity War] were actually sucked up into the Soul Stone. — 2018
4. •
   Diethyl ether (C₄H₁₀O), an organic compound with a sweet odour used in the past as an anaesthetic.

   • To A Gould and William T. G. Morton, of Boston, Mass., for improvement in apparatus for inhaling ether; &c., (said Gould having assigned to said Morton.) Patented Nov. 13, 1847. — 1847
5. •
   Any of a class of organic compounds containing an oxygen atom bonded to two hydrocarbon groups.
6. •
   Starting fluid.
7. •
   (informal) The atmosphere or space as a medium for broadcasting radio and television signals; also, a notional space through which Internet and other digital communications take place; cyberspace.

   • H. P. Lovecraft, At the Mountains of Madness He held some friendly chat with Pabodie over the ether, and repeated his praise of the really marvelous drills that had helped him make his discovery.
8. •
   (historical) Often as aether and more fully as luminiferous aether: The hypothetical substance permeating space, functioning as a medium for electromagnetic waves to propagate through, and which does not exert resistance to the movement of matter; its existence is incompatible with Einstein's theory of relativity; famously found to be undetectable by the 1887 Michelson–Morley experiment.

   • "The ether. The earth browses upon a circular path in the fields of space, and as it moves the ether is continually pouring through it and providing its vitality." — 1929
9. •
   (informal) A particular quality created by or surrounding an object, person, or place; an atmosphere, an aura.

   • The luminous aether of his life was not obscured by any shade dark enough to be denominated a defect. — 1793

verb1

1. •
   (slang) To viciously humiliate or insult.

   • The battle rapper ethered his opponent and caused him to slink away in shame.

noun1

1. •
   A unit of the Ethereum digital currency, ETH.

   • After more than 30 bids, the auction ended at 12:32 p.m. Eastern time, with a winning bid of 350 Ether, or about $560,000. — 2021