seraph

Etymology

Back-formation of singular from plural seraphim, from Latin seraphim, from Biblical Hebrew שְׂרָפִים (śərāp̄îm), plural form of שָׂרָף (śārāp̄). The plural "seraphims" occurs in the King James Bible (Isaiah chapter 6). According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the singular "seraph" may have originated with John Milton, who used it in Book I of Paradise Lost (1667).

noun

1. (biblical) A six-winged angel; one of the highest choir or order of angels in Christian angelology, ranked above cherubim, and below God. They are the 5th-highest order of angels in Jewish angelology. A detailed description can be found at the beginning of Isaiah chapter 6.
   From these uncordial reveries he is roused by a cordial slap on the shoulder, accompanied by a spicy volume of tobacco-smoke, out of which came a voice, sweet as a seraph's 1857, Herman Melville, chapter XXIII, in The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade