Pavel Novotny

Heaven may refer to the physical heavens, the sky or the seemingly endless expanse of the universe beyond. This is the traditional literal meaning of the term in English, however since at least AD 1000, it is typically also used to refer to an afterlife plane of existence (often held to exist in another realm) in various religions and spiritual philosophies, often described as the holiest possible place, accessible by people according to various standards of divinity, goodness, piety, faith etc.

The modern English word Heaven derives from the word heven around 1150, which developed from the Old English heofon around 1000 referring to the Christianized "place where God dwells" but earlier meaning "sky, firmament" (attested from around 725 in Beowulf); this is cognate with other Germanic languages - Old Saxon heƀan ("sky, heaven"), Middle Low German heven ("sky"), Old Icelandic himinn ("sky, heaven"), Gothic himins, and possibly with the addition of an -l suffix; Old Frisian himel, himul ("sky, heaven"), Old Saxon himil, Middle Dutch and modern Dutch hemel, Old High German himil and modern German Himmel, all of which derive from the reconstructed Proto-Germanic *Hemina-.