sublimity

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
sublime/səˈblʌɪm/

▶adjective (sublimer, sublimest)

• 1 of such excellence, grandeur, or beauty as to inspire great admiration or awe.

• 2 extreme or unparalleled: the sublime confidence of youth.

▶verb

• 1 Chemistry (with reference to a solid substance) change directly into vapour when heated, typically forming a solid deposit again on cooling.

• 2 archaic elevate to a high degree of purity or excellence.

– derivatives
sublimely adverb,
sublimity noun.

– origin C16 (in the sense ‘dignified, aloof’): from L. sublimis, from sub- ‘up to’ + a second element perh. rel. to limen ‘threshold’, limus ‘oblique’.