gossamer
noun
No English definition recorded for this entry.
L321350 on Wikidata ↗adjective
No English definition recorded for this entry.
L337130 on Wikidata ↗Wiktionary
Pronunciation: /ˈɡɒ.sə.mə/ / /ˈɡɑ.sə.mɚ/
adj
Etymology: From Middle English gossomer, gosesomer, gossummer (attested since around 1300, and only in reference to webs or other light things), usually thought to derive from gos (“goose”) + somer (“summer”) and to have initially referred to a period of warm weather in late autumn when geese were eaten — compare Middle Scots goesomer, goe-summer (“summery weather in late autumn; St Martin's summer”) and dialectal English go-harvest, both later connected in folk-etymology to go — and to have been transferred to cobwebs because they were frequent then or because they were likened to goose-down. Skeat says that in Craven the webs were called summer-goose, and compares Scots and dialectal English use of summer-colt in reference to "exhalations seen rising from the ground in hot weather". Weekley notes that both the webs and the weather have fantastical names in most European languages: compare German Altweibersommer (“Indian summer; cobwebs, gossamer”, literally “old wives' summer”) and other terms listed there.
- Tenuous, light, filmy or delicate.
“There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes directly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere Man.”
“The heaven was spangled with tremulous stars, and at the horizon the clouds hung down in gossamer folds—God's robe trailing in the sea!”
noun
Etymology: From Middle English gossomer, gosesomer, gossummer (attested since around 1300, and only in reference to webs or other light things), usually thought to derive from gos (“goose”) + somer (“summer”) and to have initially referred to a period of warm weather in late autumn when geese were eaten — compare Middle Scots goesomer, goe-summer (“summery weather in late autumn; St Martin's summer”) and dialectal English go-harvest, both later connected in folk-etymology to go — and to have been transferred to cobwebs because they were frequent then or because they were likened to goose-down. Skeat says that in Craven the webs were called summer-goose, and compares Scots and dialectal English use of summer-colt in reference to "exhalations seen rising from the ground in hot weather". Weekley notes that both the webs and the weather have fantastical names in most European languages: compare German Altweibersommer (“Indian summer; cobwebs, gossamer”, literally “old wives' summer”) and other terms listed there.
- A fine film made up of cobwebs, seen floating in the air or caught on bushes, etc.
“A lover may bestride the gossamer / That idles in the wanton summer air, / And yet not fall; so light is vanity.”
“The filmy Gossamer now flitts no more,”
- A soft, sheer fabric.
“Madame wiped the picture with her gossamer handkerchief and impulsively pressed a tender kiss upon the painted canvas.”
“She takes a large, gossamer scarf from the trunk and drapes it about her shoulders.”
- Anything delicate, light and flimsy.