heaven

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   In many religions, the home of God where good people are believed to go after death.

   She believed her grandmother was now in heaven.

2. 2
   noun

   A very pleasant place or experience.

   Lying on the warm beach all day was pure heaven.

3. 3
   noun

   (literary) The sky.

   The stars shone brightly in the heavens above.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Heaven is an Old English word with parallels in related languages, though its ultimate origin is unknown. It has long denoted both the sky and the divine abode regarded as lying beyond it.

From a wide variety of Middle English forms including hevene, heven, hevin, and hewin (“heaven, sky”), from Old English heofon, heofone (“heaven, sky”), from Proto-West Germanic *hebn (“heaven, sky”), of uncertain origin. Cognate with Scots heiven, hewin (“heaven, sky”), Middle Dutch heven (“sky, heaven”), Low German Heven (“heaven, sky”), and possibly the rare Icelandic and Old Norse hifinn (“heaven, sky”), which are all probably dissimilated forms of the Germanic root which appears in Old Norse himinn (“heaven, sky”), Gothic 𐌷𐌹𐌼𐌹𐌽𐍃 (himins, “heaven, sky”), Old Swedish himin, Old Danish himæn…

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