ether
noun /ˈiːθə(r)/
/ˈiːθər/
[uncountable]- a clear liquid made from alcohol, used in industry as a solvent and, in the past, in medicine to make people unconscious before an operation
- the ether(old use or literary) the upper part of the sky
- Her words disappeared into the ether.
- the etherthe air, when it is thought of as the place in which radio or electronic communication takes place
- The messages simply vanish into the ether after 24 hours.
Word Originlate Middle English: from Old French, or via Latin from Greek aithēr ‘upper air’, from the base of aithein ‘burn, shine’. Originally the word denoted a substance believed to occupy space beyond the sphere of the moon. Sense (1) arose in the mid 18th cent.