Word Finder - angels

definition

An incorporeal and sometimes divine messenger from a deity, or other divine entity, often depicted in art as a youthful winged figure in flowing robes.

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(Abrahamic tradition) One of the lowest order of such beings, below virtues.

definition

A person having the qualities attributed to angels, such as purity or selflessness.

example

Thanks for making me breakfast in bed, you little angel.

definition

Attendant spirit; genius; demon.

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(possibly obsolete) An official (a bishop, or sometimes a minister) who heads a Christian church, especially a Catholic Apostolic church.

definition

An English gold coin, bearing the figure of the archangel Michael, circulated between the 15th and 17th centuries, and varying in value from six shillings and eightpence to ten shillings.

synonyms

• angel-noble

definition

(originally Royal Air Force) An altitude, measured in thousands of feet.

example

Climb to angels sixty. (“ascend to 60,000 feet”)

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An unidentified flying object detected by air traffic control radar.

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An affluent individual who provides capital for a startup, usually in exchange for convertible debt or ownership equity; an angel investor.

definition

The person who funds a show.

synonyms

• backer

definition

To support by donating money.

definition

A person who has Angelman syndrome.

The good god created angels only.

Say your prayers angels, here comes the boogie man down the road!

Angels almost made sense.

As if we who are judges of angels are not to give sentence on earthly things..

This serves Duns Scotus as the most universal basis of existence, all angels having material bodies.

You couldn't take us all, and I'm certain I'd be the one who's left behind.  Humans take priority to you angels.  No, sweetmeats, I won't help you escape.

The angels are infinitely numerous20.

Saints and angels are highly revered, if not adored, but graven images are forbidden.

The angels supporting the world withdraw themselves from their burden, and everything falls in ruins.

The National Gallery, London, contains two remarkably fine specimens of Francia, once combined together as principal picture and lunette, - the "Virgin" and "Child and St Anna" enthroned, surrounded by saints, and (in the lunette) the "Pieta," or lamentation of angels over the dead Saviour.

These Seven, then, are in most systems half-evil, half-hostile powers; they are frequently characterized as " angels," and are reckoned as the last and lowest emanations of the Godhead; below them - and frequently considered as derived from them - comes the world of the actually devilish powers.

It was characterized by a main belief, tending towards monotheism, in the Light-deity Ahuramazda and his satellites, who appeared in contrast with him as powers of the nature of angels.

Thus the " Helena " of the Simoniani descends to this world in order by means of her beauty to provoke to sensual passion and mutual strife the angels who rule the world, and thus again to deprive them of the powers of light, stolen from heaven, by means of which they rule over the world.

In all these accounts the idea is expressed that so far as his body is concerned man is the work of the angels who created the world.

The world is represented as an orderly structure of various heavens and various earths, which is borne and supported by the aeons, the angels of light.

The prayers are addressed to the God of light, to the whole kingdom of light, to the glorious angels, and to Mani himself, who is apostrophized in them as "the great tree, which is all salvation."

Whether the Hebrew names of angels came to him direct from the Jews or not we cannot tell, but they were, as the Greek magical papyri prove, widely diffused among the Gentiles long before his age.

In the Catholic Apostolic Church ("Irvingites") confirmation is called "sealing," and is administered by the "angels."

Besides the silver altar it contains many fine works of sculpture; the chief are the monument of Cino da Pistoia, lawyer and poet, Dante's contemporary (1337), by Cellino di Nese, surrounded by his scholars, and Verrocchio's finest work in marble, the monument to Cardinal Forteguerra (1474), with a large figure of Christ, surrounded by angels, in high relief.

The church of St Michael and All Angels is mainly Perpendicular, but the tower (formerly central) and the portion west of it are Norman.

Men are the result of a primal war in heaven, when hosts of angels incited by Satan or Lucifer to revolt were driven out, and were imprisoned in terrestrial bodies created for them by the adversary.

After a reference to their descent from Abraham and their sojourn in Egypt, Aristides praises them for their worship of the one God, the Almighty Creator; but blames them as worshipping angels, and observing "sabbaths and new moons, and the unleavened bread, and the great fast, and circumcision, and cleanness of meats."

Here and there Mahomet speaks of visions, and appears even to see angels before him in bodily form.

He taught that the world had been made by angels, from one of whom, the god of the Jews, the people of Israel had received their Law, which was not perfect.

He then passed away into the wilderness, where He was tempted by Satan and fed by angels.

Subordinate supernatural beings (angels and demons), though of course accepted as real, are ignored as having no importance for life.

In the Uffizi gallery, an altarpiece, the Virgin (life-sized) enthroned, with the Infant and twelve angels.

Man stands midway between the souls of plants and the souls of stars, who are angels.

The first book opens with the mysteries of God and the angels, and then passes on to the works of the six days and the creation of man.

The headsman's axe proved more fatal, and the martyr's body was borne by angels to Mount Sinai, where Justinian I.

The recumbent effigies and decorative details of these tombs are very beautiful, but the smaller figures of angels, saints and virtues are rather clumsy in proportion.

Lenthall and Manchester, the speaker of the Lords, headed the fugitive members at the review on Hounslow Heath on the 3rd of August, being received by the soldiers "as so many angels sent from heaven for their good."

While stationed at Amiens he divided his cloak with a beggar, and on the following night had the vision of Christ making known to his angels this act of charity to Himself on the part of "Martinus, still a catechumen."

He is the Christian emperor directly inspired by angels; his sword Joyeuse contained the point of the lance used in the Passion; his standard was Romaine, the banner of St Peter, which, as the oriflamme of Saint Denis, was later to be borne in battle before the kings of France; and in 1164 Charles was canonized at the desire of the emperor Frederick I.

Of interest to visitors is that part of the city called Sonora Town,with its adobe houses, Mexican quarters, old Plaza and the Church of Our Lady, Queen of the Angels (first erected in 1822; rebuilt in 1861), which contains interesting paintings by early Indian converts.

Its only notable building is the Early English parish church of St Michael and All Angels.

In polytheism the grades of superhuman beings are continuous; but in monotheism there is a sharp distinction of kind, as well as degree, between God on the one hand, and all other superhuman beings on the other; the latter are the " angels."

So, too, the angels are styled " holy ones," 2 and " watchers," 3 and are spoken of as the " host of heaven " 4 or of " Yahweh."

At Bethel, Jacob sees the angels of God on the ladder, 12 and later on they appear to him at Mahanaim.

Thus the pre-exilic literature, as we now have it, has little to say about angels or about superhuman beings other than Yahweh and manifestations of Yahweh; the pre-exilic prophets hardly mention angels.

Moreover such beings were not strictly angels.

The doctrine of monotheism was formally expressed in the period immediately before and during the Exile, in Deuteronomy" and Isaiah; and at the same time we find angels prominent in Ezekiel who, as a prophet of the Exile, may have been influenced by the hierarchy of supernatural beings in the Babylonian religion, and perhaps even by the angelology of Zoroastrianism."

Ezekiel gives elaborate discriptions of cherubim 19; and in one of his visions he sees seven angels execute the judgment of God upon Jerusalem.

Somewhat later, in the visions of Zechariah, angels play a great part; they are sometimes spoken of as " men," sometimes as mal'akh, and the Mal'akh Yahweh seems to hold a certain primacy among them.21 Satan also appears to prosecute (so to speak) the High Priest before the divine tribunal.

The seven angels of Ezekiel may be compared with the seven eyes of Yahweh in Zech.

The latter have been connected by Ewald and others with the later doctrine of seven chief angels 25, parallel to and influenced by the Ameshaspentas (Amesha Spenta), or seven great spirits of the Persian mythology, but the connexion is doubtful.

During the Persian and Greek periods the doctrine of angels underwent a great development, partly, at any rate, under foreign influences.

In Daniel, c. 160 B.C., angels, usually spoken of as " men " or " princes," appear as guardians or champions of the nations; grades are implied, there are " princes " and " chief " or " great princes "; and the names of some angels are known, Gabriel, Michael; the latter is pre-eminent 26, he is the guardian of Judah.

Again in Tobit a leading part is played by Raphael, " one of the seven holy angels."

In the canonical Old Testament angels may inflict suffering as ministers of God, and Satan may act as accuser or tempter; but they appear as subordinate to God, fulfilling His will; and not as morally evil.