immaterial

immaterial, spiritual, incorporeal are comparable when meaning not composed of matter.

Immaterial is the most comprehensive of these terms because it makes the line of cleavage between itself and its opposite, material, not only clear and sharp but not open to confusion. If, therefore, one wishes a word to carry no other possible implication immaterial is the appropriate term; it may then apply to things believed to have real but not actual (compare REAL) or phenomenal existence or to things that are purely mental or intellectual constructions

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immaterial beings

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you feel like a disembodied spirit, immaterial— Maugham

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immaterial forces

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immaterial objects of thought

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in making mind purely immaterial ... the body ceases to be living— Dewey

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Spiritual (see also HOLY) may imply the absence of the material or tangible

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millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth unseen— Milton

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The term, however, so often applies to something which has another side or nature variously spoken of as material, animal, physical, or bodily that the word is frequently used, not to describe the character of a whole (a man, all creatures, a belief, or the world), but to distinguish the part which has the nature of a spirit or soul from the part which has not. In distinction from immaterial it frequently, therefore, connotes a supernatural, an intellectual, or a moral character

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it is the spiritual always which determines the material— Carlyle

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great men are they who see that spiritual is stronger than any material force, that thoughts rule the world— Emerson

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Incorporeal basically denies the possession or presence of a body or material form; in general use it usually suggests invisibility

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incorporeal intelligences

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the supposed activities and transactions of putative incorporeal beings— Flew

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but, especially in legal use, it may imply intangibility or impalpability

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the second group of intangibles . . . are incorporeal rights which do not diminish the rights of others in material things. Such rights as patents, royalties, trademarks, goodwill, and franchises fall into this category—W. H. Anderson

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Antonyms: material

Contrasted words: physical, corporeal, sensible, objective (See MATERIAL)