heaven
Americannoun
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the abode of God, the angels, and the spirits of the righteous after death; the place or state of existence of the blessed after the mortal life.
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(initial capital letter) Often Heavens the celestial powers; God.
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a metonym for God.
May heaven help us!
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(used with a singular verb) heavens, a wooden roof or canopy over the outer stage of an Elizabethan theater.
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Usually heavens. the sky, firmament, or expanse of space surrounding the earth.
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a place or state of supreme happiness.
She made his life a heaven on earth.
interjection
idioms
noun
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(sometimes capital) Christianity
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the abode of God and the angels
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a place or state of communion with God after death Compare hell
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(usually plural) the sky, firmament or space surrounding the earth
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(in any of various mythologies) a place, such as Elysium or Valhalla, to which those who have died in the gods' favour are brought to dwell in happiness
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a place or state of joy and happiness
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God or the gods, used in exclamatory phrases of surprise, exasperation, etc
for heaven's sake
heavens above
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ecstatically happy
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to do everything possible (to achieve something)
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of heaven
First recorded before 900; Middle English heven, Old English heofon; cognate with Middle Low German heven; akin to Old Norse himinn, Gothic himins, German Himmel
Explanation
Heaven is a place that seems absolutely perfect in every way. You can think of it as the lofty heavens up above, or as a place of everlasting bliss. The places you think of as heaven could also be called "paradise" or "Eden." All of these words are based on a religious idea of heaven as a perfect, blissful existence that's granted to good people after they die. This spiritual heaven is generally depicted as the place where God lives, and is commonly described as being high in the sky. In fact, the original meaning of the Old English heaven, heofon, was "sky."
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
He took inspiration from paintings, including Alexandre Cabanel’s 1847 work “The Fallen Angel,” which depicts the devil after his fall from heaven.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 20, 2026
In others, the "ghost" of the dead soldier appears to embrace his family from heaven.
From BBC ● Jun. 13, 2026
Sweet and savory is a match made in heaven.
From Salon ● Jun. 6, 2026
Though approached differently, the two camps are assembling an ecosystem of capabilities: rockets to reach space, data centers among the stars and satellites to beam data between heaven and earth.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 31, 2026
Just like they moved heaven and Earth to keep a lid on the Night of a Thousand Flames, they're silencing you.
From "Linked" by Gordon Korman
They benefited from the internet without the government taking a stake in Google or, thank heavens, AOL.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 6, 2026
The work suggests Dante recognized meteors as real geological forces at a time when Aristotelian beliefs still portrayed the heavens as perfect and unchanging.
From Science Daily ● May 11, 2026
Jaquez put the bow on it when she hit a late three-pointer that made it 79-45, her shot followed by a smile and a scream to the heavens.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 5, 2026
“Thank heavens I never came near the guy,” Buffett said.
From Barron's ● Mar. 31, 2026
Kepler knew there were no crystalline spheres in the heavens, and so he understood that the planets were moving through empty space on what he called an ‘orbit’.
From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
