sublime: [16] Sublime was borrowed from Latin sublīmis ‘lofty, exalted’. This was a compound adjective formed from the prefix sub- ‘under’ and probably līmen ‘lintel, threshold’ (a relative of līmes ‘boundary’, from which English gets limit). Sub- here probably has the force of ‘up to’, so that the word denotes etymologically ‘as high as the top of a door’. The same elements were used in the 1880s to coin subliminal, as a direct rendering of the German psychological term unter der schwelle des bewusstseins ‘below the threshold of consciousness’. => limit
sublime (adj.)
1580s, "expressing lofty ideas in an elevated manner," from Middle French sublime (15c.), or directly from Latin sublimis "uplifted, high, borne aloft, lofty, exalted, eminent, distinguished," possibly originally "sloping up to the lintel," from sub "up to" + limen "lintel, threshold, sill" (see limit (n.)). The sublime (n.) "the sublime part of anything, that which is stately or imposing" is from 1670s. For Sublime Porte, former title of the Ottoman government, see Porte.
例文
1. the book celebrated the sublime joys of physical love.
本書はセックスがもたらすこの上なく美しい喜びを賛美している。
2.At times the show veered from the sublime to the ridiculous.
演技が急に上品から低俗になることがある。
3.He displayed a sublime indifference to the distinction between right and wrong.
彼は是非の違いにまったく無関心だった。
4.She elevated every rare small success to the sublime .
彼女は非常に目立たない小さな成功の一つ一つを並外れた成果と誇張している。
5.The administration 's sublime incompetence is probably temporary.