English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /tɛˈɹiːn/
• Rhymes: -iːn

Adjective

terrene ‎(comparative more terrene, superlative most terrene)

1. Pertaining to the earth; earthly, terrestrial, worldly, as opposed to heavenly, marine.
   • (Can we date this quote?) Sir Walter Raleigh:

     God set before him a mortal and immortal life, a nature celestial and terrene.

   • (Can we date this quote?) Hickok:

     Common conceptions of the matters which lie at the basis of our terrene experience.

   • 1888, Henry James, The Patagonia.

     One had never thought of the sea as the great place of safety, but now it came over one that there is no place so safe from the land. When it does not give you trouble it takes it away—takes away letters and telegrams and newspapers and visits and duties and efforts, all the complications, all the superfluities and superstitions that we have stuffed into our terrene life.

   • 1922, James Joyce, Ulysses:

     Arius, warring his life long upon the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father, and Valentine, spurning Christ’s terrene body, and the subtle African heresiarch Sabellius who held that the Father was Himself His own Son.

   • 1974, Guy Davenport, Tatlin!:

     For the earth was both celestial and terrene, the down here and the up there.

Related terms

• superterrene
• terra
• terrace
• terracotta
• terrain
• terrier
• territorial
• territory
• terrestrial

Noun

terrene

1. (poetic) The Earth's surface; the earth; the ground.
   • Tenfold the length of this terrene. — Milton.

Etymology 2

Noun

terrene ‎(plural terrenes)

1. Dated form of tureen.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Walpole to this entry?)

Anagrams

• re-enter, reenter, reënter

Italian

Adjective

terrene f pl

1. feminine plural of terreno

Latin

Adjective

terrēne

1. vocative masculine singular of terrēnus