MEANING
A supernatural or imagined realm beyond ordinary reality, often associated with the dead.
Use it for
describing a world believed to exist beyond death; setting a scene outside ordinary earthly reality; distinguishing an imagined realm from an individual’s afterlife; portraying a boundary between the living and the deadNames a realm beyond ordinary life or reality, rather than the continued existence of an individual after death. Writing functions: Death / Mortality, Cosmic Horror fallback.
Words that belong together
- the otherworld
- enter the otherworld
- a passage to the otherworld
On the page
In her grandmother’s stories, the otherworld began where the old road entered the marsh.
The mirror showed an otherworld in which every abandoned house was still occupied.
Word forms
- Base
- otherworld
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Usage notes
Noun: the otherworld; an otherworld; plural otherworlds when comparing imagined realms. Lowercase common noun here, not the proper name of a specific fictional setting. Register: literary. Commonness: uncommon (dictionary-informed qualitative editorial estimate; not a measured frequency).
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