SERAPH (seraphim)

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

Irregular inflected form: seraphim   

 Dictionary entry overview: What does seraph mean? 

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

1. an angel of the first order; usually portrayed as the winged head of a child

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

 Dictionary entry details 

• SERAPH (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

An angel of the first order; usually portrayed as the winged head of a child

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

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

angel (spiritual being attendant upon God)

Derivation:

seraphic (having a sweet nature befitting an angel or cherub)

seraphic; seraphical (of or relating to an angel of the first order)

 Context examples 

So transformed and so ethereal was her expression, that Alleyne, in his loftiest dream of archangel or of seraph, had never pictured so sweet, so womanly, and yet so wise a face.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

By what instinct do you pretend to distinguish between a fallen seraph of the abyss and a messenger from the eternal throne—between a guide and a seducer?

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

We are, and must be, one and all, burdened with faults in this world: but the time will soon come when, I trust, we shall put them off in putting off our corruptible bodies; when debasement and sin will fall from us with this cumbrous frame of flesh, and only the spark of the spirit will remain,—the impalpable principle of light and thought, pure as when it left the Creator to inspire the creature: whence it came it will return; perhaps again to be communicated to some being higher than man—perhaps to pass through gradations of glory, from the pale human soul to brighten to the seraph!

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)