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Make Your Point > Archived Issues > PRETERNATURAL

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pronounce PRETERNATURAL:

"PREE tur NATCH uh rull."

Or, if you prefer, "PRAY tur NATCH uh rull."
Your browser does not support the audio element.


connect this word to others:

The word preternatural is semi-common: if you read for an hour a day, you might bump into it once every few months.

Emphasis on might, because it's possible for us to keep meeting new-to-us "semi-common" words all throughout life, even if we read daily. I never noticed the word preternatural until I was 29 years old! It was in the book The Fault In Our Stars:

"[Isaac] wore the kind of thick glasses that made his eyes (both the real one and the glass one) preternaturally huge."

What a great bit of context. We can immediately picture how Isaac's eyes look bizarrely huge, abnormally huge, exor___antly huge.

Can you recall that last synonym? It literally means "in a way that goes outside the usual track."

(To reveal any word with blanks, give it a click.)  

definition:

"Preternatural" traces back to the Latin phrase praeter naturam (praeterque fatum), which means "beyond nature (and beyond fate)."

Since the late 1500s, we've used "preternatural" to mean "beyond natural, outside of what's natural: unnatural or supernatural."

In other words, when you want a hefty, attention-grabbing word for something weird, strange, unnatural, extreme, and unusual, you can call it preternatural.

grammatical bits:

Part of speech:

Adjective: "preternatural beauty," "Their beauty is preternatural."

Other forms: 

The adverb is "preternaturally," as in "They're preternaturally beautiful."

For a noun, my favorite is "preternaturality," but you can also use "preternature," "preternaturalness," and "preternaturalism."

how to use it:

Pick "preternatural" (instead of "mystic," "superhuman," or "extraordinary") when you need to grab your reader's attention.

We most often talk about people's preternatural skills, talents, abilities, and characteristics: "a cat's preternatural sense of balance," "his preternatural fluency with music," "her preternatural calm."

But we also talk about preternatural colors, sizes, durations, temperatures and other things: "The sky turned a preternatural green;" "I'm jealous of Drew's preternaturally long eyelashes;" "The day seemed to me of a preternatural length (Charlotte Brontë);" "The room became prenaturally hot and still;" "A preternatural hush fell over the crowd."

examples:

"He remembered the fear, a preternatural chill, the way his heart had pounded in his chest."  
  — Ayana Gray, Beasts of Prey, 2021

"New Jack Swing is chiefly characterized by its attitude. To perform it requires deep self-assurance and an almost preternatural ease on the dance floor—what we might now call swagger."   
  — Amanda Petrusich, The New Yorker

has this page helped you understand "preternatural"?

   

Awesome, I'm glad it helped!

Thanks for letting me know!
If you have any questions about this term, please message me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.


study it:

Explain the meaning of "preternatural" without saying "abnormal" or "unearthly."

try it out:

In the Guardian, Oscar Schwartz describes his "journey into the dark, hypnotic world of a millennial guru:"

"Bentinho Massaro's rise as an online spiritual teacher would... [test] the boundaries between the spiritual influencer and the charismatic manipulator. From the beginning, he had a preternatural talent for making his followers fall in love not only with his teachings, but with his online persona."

As you can see from the way Schwartz uses the word "preternatural" to describe the guru's talent, it can mean "extreme in a wonderful way," "extreme in an unsettling way," and both. I think Schwartz means both.

With this guru in mind as an example, could you talk about someone else with a preternatural talent of some sort? And do you mean it's wonderful, unsettling, or both?




before you review, play:

Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out.

Our game this month is "Literally That."

I’ll give you a gif and several synonyms that describe it, and you figure out which of these synonyms is most literally illustrated in the gif. You can check out some examples here.

Try this one today:

(Source)

A. lickety-split
B. holus-bolus
C. expeditious

To see the answer, scroll all the way down. 

review this word:

1. One opposite of PRETERNATURAL is NATURAL in the sense of

A. NORMAL, TYPICAL.
B. EASY, CONFIDENT.
C. MINIMALLY PROCESSED.

2. Amanda Hess writes that the TikTok-famous lip-syncer Addison Rae was "born with superior tooth enamel and a preternatural awareness of [her] most flattering angles," indicating that Rae has _____ knack for photographing herself well.

A. an uncanny
B. a consistent
C. a social-media standard




Answers to the review questions:
1. A
2. A

From the game:

I was thinking of holus-bolus: with the whole clump (of medicine or food) all at once.


a final word:


I hope you're enjoying Make Your Point. It's made with love.

I'm Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words.


From my blog:
On vocabulary...
      36 ways to study words.
      Why we forget words, & how to remember them.
      How to use sophisticated words without being awkward.
On writing...
      How to improve any sentence.
      How to motivate our kids to write.
      How to stop procrastinating and start writing.
      How to bulk up your writing when you have to meet a word count.

From my heart: a profound thanks to the generous patrons, donors, and sponsors that make it possible for me to write these emails. If you'd like to be a patron or a donor, please click here. If you'd like to be a sponsor and include your ad in an issue, please contact me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.

A disclaimer: When I write definitions, I use plain language and stick to the words' common, useful applications. If you're interested in authoritative and multiple definitions of words, I encourage you to check a dictionary. Also, because I'm American, I stick to American English when I share words' meanings, usage, and pronunciations; these elements sometimes vary across world Englishes.

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