a. and sb. [SUB- 1 a. Cf. OF. sousceleste.] A. adj. Situated or existing beneath or below the heavens; rare in literal sense; chiefly transf. Terrestrial, mundane, sublunary.
1561. Eden, Arte Nauig., I. v. 7 b. The Emperial heauen, conteyneth three … Hierarchias,… the fyrste … called supercelestiall…. The second is called Celestiall…. The thyrde called Subcelestiall, conteyneth Virtutes, Archangels and Angels.
1627. Hakewill, Apol. (1630), 45. All subcelestiall bodies … consist of matter and forme.
1661. Glanvill, Van. Dogm., 4. The most refined glories of subcœlestial excellencies are but more faint resemblances of these.
1678. Cudworth, Intell. Syst., I. iv. § 32. 497. The Dii Consentes, were understood by Apuleius neither to be Celestial nor Subcelestial Bodies, but a certain higher Nature perceptible only to our Minds.
1741–70. Eliz. Carter, Lett. (1808), 35. Whether Mrs. Montagu may not be delighting herself with a tour through the coal mines, and have lost all remembrance of her subcelestial friends.
1913. Webster, Subcelestial,… Astron., exactly beneath the zenith.
B. sb. A subcelestial being.
1652. Benlowes, Theoph., Pref. Sub-cœlestials, or Sublunaries have their Assignment in the lowest Portion of the Universe.
1708. H. Dodwell, Expl. Dial. Justin, 61. So Socrates in Plato understood Euripides, when, speaking of the Difference between the Cœlestials and Subcœlestials, he makes their Life to be a Death to us, and our Life to be a Death to them.
