sublime

Etymology 1

From Middle English sublimen, borrowed from Old French sublimer, from Latin sublimō (“to raise on high; to sublimate (in Medieval Latin)”).

verb

1. (chemistry, physics, transitive, intransitive) To sublimate.
2. (transitive) To raise on high.
   a soul sublimed by an idea above the region of vanity and conceit 1857, E. P. Whipple, Harper's Magazine
3. (transitive) To exalt; to heighten; to improve; to purify.
4. (transitive) To dignify; to ennoble.

Etymology 2

From Middle French sublime, from Latin sublīmis (“high”), from sub- (“up to, upwards”) + a root of uncertain affiliation often identified with Latin līmis, ablative singular of līmus (“oblique”) or līmen (“threshold, entrance, lintel”).

adj

1. Noble and majestic.
   the sublime Julian leader 1842, Thomas De Quincey, “Cicero”, in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine
2. Impressive and awe-inspiring, yet simple.
   sublime scenery
   a sublime deed
   Easy in words thy style, in sense sublime. 1718, Matthew Prior, “To Dr. Sherlock, On His Practical Discourse Concerning Death”, in Poems on Several Occasions
   We had entered the clouds. For half-an-hour we were muffled in a cold, damp mist, and total darkness, and had begun to think of going indoors when, all at once, the car burst into the pure and starlit region of the upper air. A cry of joyous admiration escaped from us all. The spectacle before us was indeed sublime. 1897, John Munro, chapter //dummy.host/index.php?title=s%3Aen%3AA_Trip_to_Venus%2FChapter_VI VI, in A Trip to Venus
   Cigarettes are poison and they taste bad; they are not exactly beautiful, they are exactly sublime. 1993, Richard Klein, Cigarettes are sublime, London: Picador, published 1995, page 62
3. (obsolete) Lifted up; high in place; exalted aloft; uplifted; lofty.
4. (obsolete) Elevated by joy; elated.
5. Lofty of mien; haughty; proud.

noun

1. Something sublime.
   Asa Skinner was a man possessed of a belief, of that sentiment of the sublime before which all inequalities are leveled, that transport of conviction which seems superior to all laws of condition, under which debauchees have become martyrs; which made a tinker an artist and a camel-driver the founder of an empire. 1900, Willa Cather, “Eric Hermannson's Soul”, in Cosmopolitan, 28:633 (April)