noun
ether
EE-thuh
noun
1
A sweet-smelling, highly flammable liquid once widely used as an anaesthetic and still used as a solvent.
"Doctors once used ether to put patients to sleep before surgery."
2
The clear upper sky or heavens, especially in older or poetic usage; historically, a hypothetical substance once thought to fill space.
"The poem describes stars scattered across the ether."
3
The airwaves or broadcast medium through which radio, TV, or digital signals travel.
"The message vanished into the digital ether."
How to Use Ether
Learner’s notesIn plain EnglishA chemical solvent/anaesthetic, or poetically, the sky or an unseen medium that signals or messages seem to travel through.
Common mistake
Don't confuse with "either" (a word for choice between options) — they sound similar but are unrelated.
Easily confused with
Word Forms
ethered past tense, ethers plural, Ether plural, ethers singular
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Doctors once used _____ to put patients to sleep before surgery.
Etymology
From Latin aethēr, from Ancient Greek aithḗr (\"the upper air, sky\"), from aíthō (\"to burn, blaze\") — originally the imagined substance filling the heavens above the clouds.