What's the difference between preternatural and supernatural?

Preternatural


Definition:

  • (a.) Beyond of different from what is natural, or according to the regular course of things, but not clearly supernatural or miraculous; strange; inexplicable; extraordinary; uncommon; irregular; abnormal; as, a preternatural appearance; a preternatural stillness; a preternatural presentation (in childbirth) or labor.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) At the time she was preternaturally calm, though she did find her composure sometimes slipped at the hospital.
  • (2) Like Clinton and Reagan, he has been credited with being a formidably effective communicator, described as having "a preternatural gift for making the complex seem deceptively simple".
  • (3) The 52-year-old former teacher is portrayed in China as a sort of home-grown Donald Trump – ultra-ambitious and preternaturally gifted at navigating the country's vast network of "guanxi", or personal connections.
  • (4) Phyllis Dorothy James was born in Oxford in 1920 – a year that's doubly celebrated by crime aficionados, since it also heralded the dawning of the Golden Age of detective fiction , that interwar flowering of intricately plotted mysteries, in which the preternaturally shrewd detective is invited to pick his way through a liberal scattering of clues and red herrings, before confronting reader and murderer with his irrefutable conclusions in the final pages.
  • (5) "Ah just want to sort out the funeral," she blubbed at the preternaturally patient Chesney, overbite quivering like a hovercraft as the prospect of another 15 years of storylines involving the widow whimpering in her HMP Plot Device netball bib lumbered horrifyingly into view.
  • (6) Fecal diversion is ensured by a preternatural anus.
  • (7) But Lawrence's still, graceful performance as the preternaturally strong-willed teenager doggedly juggling the multiple roles she has been forced into – her siblings' mother, her mother's carer, her father's replacement – is so intriguing and emotionally compelling that you're likely to emerge feeling unexpectedly warmed up.
  • (8) April Bloomfield is small, preternaturally cheerful, and extremely single-minded.
  • (9) A paragon of common sense to supporters and a xenophobic sophist to critics, Peters, who is part Maori, is a "preternaturally charming old-stager", according to Jane Clifton, a political columnist for the weekly NZ Listener magazine.
  • (10) But though the naked mole rats do not immediately impress with grace and beauty, there are plenty of other characteristics in which they are almost preternaturally evolved; traits including extraordinary longevity and the apparent ability to avoid cancerous tumours, qualities that might yet make them man's best friend.
  • (11) For eight years, we have been represented by an elegant, well-spoken, funny, highly educated, moderate, morally upright, preternaturally calm black man.
  • (12) The most careful surgical technique, the guiding principles of which are outlined, is a prerequisite for the subsequent possibilities for correct care of preternatural anus and for preventing otherwise unavoidable complications.
  • (13) After his undergraduate degree - George Monbiot, a flatmate, remembers him being preternaturally collected and focused - Ferguson did postgraduate work at Oxford and then Cambridge, keeping himself financially afloat by writing leaders for the Daily Telegraph and book reviews for the Daily Mail under assumed names, before becoming a fellow, then professor of history at Oxford.
  • (14) It’s rather strange, swapping the craziness of the Edinburgh’s Royal Mile at festival time for the preternatural quiet of the Scottish parliament in early August: like being thrown out of a party.
  • (15) A more comprehensive organization of those with preternatural anus within the framework of the German Ilco and the establishment of preternatural anus clinics and therapists would be desirable.
  • (16) The effect of Xantinol nicotinate and of hyperosmolar solution upon colonic motility of man was examined in five patients with tranverse preternatural anus by means of intraluminal tonometry.
  • (17) Once the stage of extraperitoneal evasion of the sigmoid has been achieved for definitive preternatural anus, transsection is made of the aponeurosis of m. obliqu.
  • (18) Incontinence and incontinence of the preternatural anus were eliminated in the first operations using autologous autotransplanted sphincteroplasties.
  • (19) On a sunny morning in mid-July, Malalai School for Girls in Kabul is preternaturally quiet.
  • (20) The intervention in 18 patients was modified Gabriel's operation, in four patients combined with the modified method of sphincterolevatorplasty and in 4 patients--preternatural anus.

Supernatural


Definition:

  • (a.) Being beyond, or exceeding, the power or laws of nature; miraculous.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) You can see where the religious meme sprung from: when the world was an inexplicable and scary place, a belief in the supernatural was both comforting and socially adhesive.
  • (2) American Horror Story is a paean to the supernatural whose greatest purpose is letting washed-up actors and pop stars chew the scenery on the way to winning awards .
  • (3) There was no relationship between psychoses and supernatural belief types.
  • (4) Due to the supernatural aura surrounding mental disease, the lack of a sufficient biological basis, and the capacity to reduce civil rights of individuals, psychiatry occupies a special position among the medical disciplines.
  • (5) He added that the Halloween challenge will become an annual event for psychics and others who claim supernatural abilities.
  • (6) Their focus on supernatural faith – on healing and speaking in tongues – is shared with LoveBristol, but E 5 put less emphasis on woolly jumpers and green politics and more on slick online videos and social media .
  • (7) He has described it as "a domestic tragedy with only vaguely supernatural overtones", saying that, "a visceral sceptic such as Kubrick just couldn't grasp the sheer inhuman evil of the Overlook Hotel."
  • (8) But Thorne’s working life has been spent subverting genres, through his Bafta-winning work on supernatural thriller The Fades and Shane Meadows’s bleak, beautiful coming-of-age miniseries This Is England ’86 and ’88.
  • (9) It’s thoroughly appropriate that the last large-scale piece he completed was a community and children’s opera, The Hogboon, which will receive its first performance at the Barbican in London in June ; it’s based on an Orkney legend of supernatural beings who inhabit the prehistoric burial mounds that are found all over the islands, and who are entirely benign.
  • (10) The most relevant results were: the taxonomic determination of 237 vegetal species from which 399 curative products are obtained, in order to combat 57 illnesses, the most frequent of which are those related to the digestive system, the skin, the reproductive system and those of supernatural origin, which can only be treated by the use of plants in special ceremonies known as 'limpias', due to their peculiar condition.
  • (11) Analysis of the relationship of AIDS to traditional beliefs revealed that AIDS had been integrated into the traditional conceptualization of illness, health practices, and healing, and was attributed to both natural and supernatural causes.
  • (12) Multi-dimensional scaling analysis shows four clusters of mental distress: a) stress; b) western physiological; c) nonwestern physiological; and d) supernatural.
  • (13) The Queen is bonded to her country and people by supernatural compact.
  • (14) Herein lies the danger: it is in the interests of both western powers and Isis to grant this bunch of terrorists an almost supernatural horror.
  • (15) The movie might not have continued to inspire this level of devotion without its central, unanswerable mystery about the cause of the time loop; other Hollywood fantasies provide explanations for their supernatural events.
  • (16) Illness and the supernatural world are linked by the concepts of ghosts and Fever, the latter an index of ghost illness, deriving from a supernatural being.
  • (17) He designed a leaflet titled “Look After Yourself” pointing out clues that might distinguish between a person with supernatural powers and a person who “just appears to have them”.
  • (18) Illustrated by artists including Breno Tamura, Matt Rosenberg and Gus Storms, it's a supernatural-tinged tale of Mafia intrigue in which the soul of a murdered gangster, Tony Starks (Ghostface's regular alter ego), is bound up in 12 pieces of mystical vinyl.
  • (19) Breaking Bad and House of Cards are up against two subtitled series, BBC4's Danish political drama import Borgen and The Returned, the French supernatural thriller broadcast by Channel 4, for the international Bafta.
  • (20) BBC4's documentary about the supernatural on TV, Ghosts in the Machine, was watched by 304,000 between 9pm and 10pm.