MYSTIC

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does mystic mean? 

• MYSTIC (noun)
  The noun MYSTIC has 1 sense:

1. someone who believes in the existence of realities beyond human comprehension

  Familiarity information: MYSTIC used as a noun is very rare.

• MYSTIC (adjective)
  The adjective MYSTIC has 3 senses:

1. having an import not apparent to the senses nor obvious to the intelligence; beyond ordinary understanding

2. relating to or resembling mysticism

3. relating to or characteristic of mysticism

  Familiarity information: MYSTIC used as an adjective is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• MYSTIC (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Someone who believes in the existence of realities beyond human comprehension

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

mystic; religious mystic

Hypernyms ("mystic" is a kind of...):

believer; worshiper; worshipper (a person who has religious faith)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "mystic"):

quietist (a religious mystic who follows quietism)

Instance hyponyms:

Buddha; Gautama; Gautama Buddha; Gautama Siddhartha; Siddhartha (founder of Buddhism (c 563-483 BC))

Chuang-tzu (4th-century Chinese philosopher on whose teachings Lao-tse based Taoism)

Behmen; Boehm; Boehme; Bohme; Jakob Behmen; Jakob Boehm; Jakob Boehme; Jakob Bohme (German mystic and theosophist who founded modern theosophy; influenced George Fox (1575-1624))

Eckhart; Johannes Eckhart; Meister Eckhart (German Roman Catholic theologian and mystic (1260-1327))

Derivation:

mystic; mystical (having an import not apparent to the senses nor obvious to the intelligence; beyond ordinary understanding)

mystical (relating to or characteristic of mysticism)

mystical (relating to or resembling mysticism)

• MYSTIC (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Having an import not apparent to the senses nor obvious to the intelligence; beyond ordinary understanding

Synonyms:

mysterious; mystic; mystical; occult; orphic; secret

Context example:

the secret learning of the ancients

Similar:

esoteric (confined to and understandable by only an enlightened inner circle)

Derivation:

mystic (someone who believes in the existence of realities beyond human comprehension)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Relating to or resembling mysticism

Classified under:

Relational adjectives (pertainyms)

Synonyms:

mystic; mystical

Context example:

mystical theories about the securities market

Pertainym:

mysticism (obscure or irrational thought)

Derivation:

mysticism (obscure or irrational thought)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Relating to or characteristic of mysticism

Classified under:

Relational adjectives (pertainyms)

Synonyms:

mystic; mystical

Context example:

mystical religion

Pertainym:

mysticism (a religion based on mystical communion with an ultimate reality)

Derivation:

mysticism (a religion based on mystical communion with an ultimate reality)

 Context examples 

Gladys of the mystic lake, now to be re-named the Central, for never shall she have immortality through me.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

And it chanced that the direction of my scientific studies, which led wholly towards the mystic and the transcendental, reacted and shed a strong light on this consciousness of the perennial war among my members.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

Here then I was in the third storey, fastened into one of its mystic cells; night around me; a pale and bloody spectacle under my eyes and hands; a murderess hardly separated from me by a single door: yes—that was appalling—the rest I could bear; but I shuddered at the thought of Grace Poole bursting out upon me.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

And, after all, this opening chapter will seem to the reader to have nothing to do with my narrative; and yet there would have been no narrative without it, for it is only when a man goes out into the world with the thought that there are heroisms all round him, and with the desire all alive in his heart to follow any which may come within sight of him, that he breaks away as I did from the life he knows, and ventures forth into the wonderful mystic twilight land where lie the great adventures and the great rewards.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

While Mary drew, Diana pursued a course of encyclopaedic reading she had (to my awe and amazement) undertaken, and I fagged away at German, he pondered a mystic lore of his own: that of some Eastern tongue, the acquisition of which he thought necessary to his plans.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)