sublime [M16th] Originally sublime meant ‘dignified or aloof’—the source is Latin sublimis ‘in a high position, lofty’, probably from sub- ‘up to’ and limen ‘threshold or lintel’. The modern sense of ‘outstandingly beautiful or grand’ arose in the 17th century. Sublimate, from the same source, had been used by medieval alchemists as a chemical term. The expression from the sublime to the ridiculous is a shortening of the saying from the sublime to the ridiculous is only a step, a remark attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte, following the retreat from Moscow in 1812. Napoleon was not the first to express such an idea, though. The English political writer Thomas Paine wrote in The Age of Reason (1794): ‘The sublime and the ridiculous are often so nearly related, that it is difficult to class them separately. One step above the sublime, makes the ridiculous; and one step above the ridiculous, makes the sublime again.’