unfleshly

English

Etymology

un- +‎ fleshly

Adjective

unfleshly (comparative more unfleshly, superlative most unfleshly)

1. Not pertaining to or devoted to the flesh or the body; not physical.

   Synonym: spiritual

   • 1683, uncredited translator, Ecclesiastical History by Evagrius Scholasticus, Book 4, Chapter 33, in The History of the Church from Our Lord’s Incarnation, to the Twelfth Year of the Emperour Maricius Tiberius, London: Han. Sawbridge, p. 493,^[1]

     This person lead an unfleshly life in the flesh, in a certain Monastery […]

   • c. 1721, Aaron Hill, The Fatal Extravagance, London: T. Jauncy, Epilogue,^[2]

     The Bard, not carnal-minded,—say the Curious,

     How come th’ unfleshly Folks, to be so furious?

   • 1861, Charles Reade, “chapter 49”, in The Cloister and the Hearth; or, Maid, Wife, and Widow. A Matter-of-Fact Romance., New York, N.Y.: Rudd & Carleton; London: Trübner & Co.:

     […] her tears fell on his arm the while, unheeded—except by those unfleshly eyes, with which they say the very air is thronged.

   • 1974, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, translated by Thomas P. Whitney, The Gulag Archipelago‎^[3], New York: Harper & Row, Volume 2, Part 3, Chapter 8, p. 239:

     […] from its unfleshly character, as the women remember today, the spirituality of camp love became even more profound.