Gossamer

Part of speech: adjective, noun

Pronunciation: /ˈɡɒ.sə.mə/

Definitions

1. A fabric that is exceptionally light, fine, and sheer ; anything that is very delicate, light, or insubstantial in nature
2. A gossamer textile made from fine, thin threads creating a nearly transparent material ; an object or quality marked by extreme delicacy and fragility
3. A material characterized by its thin, airy, and delicate texture used especially in clothing ; a metaphor for something having a fragile, light, or almost weightless quality

Etymology: The most striking part of this word's story is that its first sense had nothing to do with fabric. In Middle English, "gossomer" (attested from around 1300) was used only of cobwebs and other light, floating things, and it probably began as a name for a stretch of warm weather in late autumn. The likeliest reading is "goose" plus "summer": a "goose-summer" was the mild spell around St Martin's feast, when geese were traditionally slaughtered, and similar names survive in Scots and English dialects such as "goe-summer" and "go-harvest". From that season the name moved to the filmy webs that glint on autumn grass, perhaps because they appeared then, or perhaps because they looked like goose-down. The fabric sense came later, as the word shifted from the gauzy web itself to anything else that was as fine and light as one. Dialect writers also recorded "summer-goose" for such webs in Craven, and related names such as German "Altweibersommer" ("old wives' summer") show that many European languages dressed these autumn webs in similarly fanciful terms.

Synonyms: sheer, light, delicate, thin, diaphanous

Antonyms: heavy, thick, opaque, dense, substantial