diaphane

diaphane

English

Etymology

From Middle French diaphane, from Medieval Latin diaphanus (“diaphanous”), from Ancient Greek διαφανής (diaphanḗs), from δια- (dia-, “through”) and φαίνω (phaínō, “show”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈdaɪəfeɪn/

Noun

diaphane (countable and uncountable, plural diaphanes)

1. Something transparent or diaphanous.
   • 1919, Donald F. Goold Johnson, Poems, page 71:

     And for man's life as the clear sparkling wine, Gladding the heart and lifting up the soul From its frail diaphane of petulant flesh, Yet whence doth flow this liquor of delight ?

   • 2007, Cecilia Dart-Thornton, The Battle of Evernight: Bitterbynde 3, →ISBN:

     Here, dragonflies of metallic emerald-gold or ruby iridescence froze in midair on almost-invisible wings of diaphane.

   • 2011, Valentine Cunningham, Victorian Poetry Now: Poets, Poems and Poetics, →ISBN:

     I moulded with my hands The mobile breasts, the valley; and the waist I touched; and pigments reverently placed Upon their thighs in sapient spots and stains, Beryls and crysolites and diaphanes, And gems whose hot harsh names are never said.

2. A woven silk stuff with transparent and colored figures.
3. (Aristotelian philosophy) Essence or nature as encapsulated in a mental construct.
   • 2004, Didier Eribon, Insult and the Making of the Gay Self, →ISBN, page 168:

     The figure of the diaphane, "this clear crystal nature," is a person so perfect that his simple presence would do more for the world than others manage to do through their actions.

   • 2008, John Michael Greer, The Druid Magic Handbook: Ritual Magic Rooted in the Living Earth, →ISBN:

     Thus dreams and daydreams, stray thoughts, and all the other products of imagination are not simply inside one human brain; some are created by the diaphane of the person who experiences them, others come form outside, but all are projected onto the astral light.

   • 2010, Greg Urban, Metaphysical Community: The Interplay of the Senses and the Intellect, →ISBN:

     What becomes a topic of conversation, what becomes the subject of publicly circulating discourses, is what lies beyond the senses — the land above the sky, the world of the dead, the other side of the diaphane.

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French

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Medieval Latin diaphanus (“diaphanous”), from Ancient Greek διαφανής (diaphanḗs), from δια- (dia-, “through”) and φαίνω (phaínō, “show”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /dja.fan/

• Audio

  (file)

Adjective

diaphane (plural diaphanes)

1. (physics or formal) diaphanous, translucent
2. (of a person or their physical traits) delicate, fragile

   Elle avait des mains diaphanes.

   She had delicate hands.

Derived terms

• diaphanomètre

Further reading

• “diaphane”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

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German

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /diaˈfaːnə/

• Audio

  (file)

Adjective

diaphane

1. inflection of diaphan:
   1. strong/mixed nominative/accusative feminine singular
   2. strong nominative/accusative plural
   3. weak nominative all-gender singular
   4. weak accusative feminine/neuter singular

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Latin

Adjective

diaphane

1. vocative masculine singular of diaphanus