Definition of "preternatural" [pre•ter•nat•u•ral]

• Out of or being beyond the normal course of nature; differing from the natural. (adjective)
• Surpassing the normal or usual; extraordinary: "Below his preternatural affability there is some acid and steel” ( George F. Will). (adjective)
• Transcending the natural or material order; supernatural. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Conning back for these posts, it was no longer a stream, but more of a river of humanity, with everyone in preternatural good cheer."
• "Following up on a halloween coversation about ghosts, most people don't know the word preternatural--often incorrectly using the word supernatural ("above nature") when they mean preternatural ("beyond nature")."
• "His upper jaw was furnished with two long white sharp-pointed teeth or fangs, such as the reader may have observed in the chaps of a wolf, or full-grown mastiff, and an anatomist would describe as a preternatural elongation of the dentes canini."