cherub

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  An early 17th-century andiron in the Jamestown collection. Note the cherub’s head near the base
• WordNet 3.6
  • n cherub an angel of the second order whose gift is knowledge; usually portrayed as a winged child
  • n cherub a sweet innocent baby
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• • Cherub A beautiful child; -- so called because artists have represented cherubs as beautiful children.
  • Cherub A mysterious composite being, the winged footstool and chariot of the Almighty, described in Ezekiel i. and x. "I knew that they were the cherubim .""He rode upon a cherub and did fly."
  • Cherub A symbolical winged figure of unknown form used in connection with the mercy seat of the Jewish Ark and Temple.
  • Cherub One of a order of angels, variously represented in art. In European painting the cherubim have been shown as blue, to denote knowledge, as distinguished from the seraphim (see Seraph), and in later art the children's heads with wings are generally called cherubs.
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• • n cherub One of an order of angels variously represented at different times, but generally as winged spirits with a human countenance (often simply as winged heads), and distinguished by their knowledge from the seraphs, whose distinctive quality is love. In the celestial hierarchy cherubs are represented as next in order to seraphs. The first mention of cherubs is in Gen. iii. 24, where their figure is not described, but their office was, with a flaming sword, to keep or guard the way of the tree of life. Figures of a pair of cherubs were placed on the mercy-seat of the ark, and a pair of colossal size overshadowed it in Solomon's temple with the canopy of their contiguously extended wings. They are called “the cherubims of glory” (Heb. ix. 5), as on them the glory, when visible, rested. They were anointed with the holy oil, like the ark itself and the other sacred furniture. Their wings were stretched upward, and their faces turned “toward each other, and toward the mercy-seat.” The cherubs seen in Ezekiel's vision had each four heads or faces, the hands of a man, and wings. The four faces were the face of a cherub, that of a man, that of a lion, and that of an eagle. They had the bodily form of a man. (Ezek. x.) The hieroglyphical and emblematical figures embroidered on the veils of the tabernacle were called “cherubims of cunning work” (Ex. xxvi. 1).
  • n cherub A beautiful child: so called because in painting and sculpture cherubs are generally represented as beautiful winged children.
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• • n Cherub cher′ub a winged creature with human face, represented as associated with Jehovah, esp. drawing his chariot-throne: a celestial spirit: a beautiful child
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