gossamer
English
WOTD – 19 January 2006
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”)[1] and to have initially referred to a period of warm weather in late autumn when geese were eaten[2][3][4][5] — compare Middle Scots goesomer, goe-summer (“summery weather in late autumn; St Martin's summer”)[1] and dialectal English go-harvest,[6] both later connected in folk-etymology to go)[5][7][8] — and to have been transferred to cobwebs because they were frequent then or because they were likened to goose-down.[2][3][5][4] 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".[9] Weekley notes that both the webs and the weather have fantastical names in most European languages:[10] compare German Altweibersommer (“Indian summer; cobwebs, gossamer”, literally “old wives' summer”) and other terms listed there.
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈɡɒ.sə.mə/
- (General American) IPA(key): /ˈɡɑ.sə.mɚ/
Audio (AU) (file)
Noun
gossamer (countable and uncountable, plural gossamers)
- A fine film or strand as of cobwebs, floating in the air or caught on bushes, etc.
- c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act II, scene vi]:
- A lover may bestride the gossamer
That idles in the wanton summer air,
And yet not fall; so light is vanity.
- 1697, Virgil, “The First Book of the Georgics”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], OCLC 403869432, line 453:
- The filmy Gossamer now flitts no more,
- 1886 May 1 – July 31, Robert Louis Stevenson, chapter 22, in Kidnapped, being Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the Year 1751: […], London; Paris: Cassell & Company, Limited., published 1886, OCLC 1056292939, page 222:
- I had been dead-heavy before, and now I felt a kind of dreadful lightness, which would not suffer me to walk. I drifted like a gossamer; the ground seemed to me a cloud, the hills a feather-weight, the air to have a current, like a running burn, which carried me to and fro.
- 1972, Richard Adams, Watership Down, Penguin, 1974, Part 2, Chapter 26, p. 233,
- The dew and gossamer had dried early from the grass
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- A soft, sheer fabric.
- 1894, Kate Chopin, “A Lady of Bayou St. John” in Bayou Folk, Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, p. 306,
- Madame wiped the picture with her gossamer handkerchief and impulsively pressed a tender kiss upon the painted canvas.
- 1947, Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire, New York: Signet, Scene 5, p. 84,
- She takes a large, gossamer scarf from the trunk and drapes it about her shoulders.
- 2013, Rachel Kushner, The Flamethrowers, New York: Scribner, Chapter 14, p. 231,
- a circle of popes or maybe bishops in white gossamer robes
- 1894, Kate Chopin, “A Lady of Bayou St. John” in Bayou Folk, Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, p. 306,
- Anything delicate, light and flimsy.
Derived terms
- gossamered
- gossamery (adjective)
- gossamer-thin (adjective)
Translations
cobwebs floating in the air
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a soft, sheer fabric
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anything delicate, light, flimsy
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked
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Adjective
gossamer (comparative more gossamer, superlative most gossamer)
- Tenuous, light, filmy or delicate.
- 1845, Edgar Allan Poe, “The Black Cat” in Tales, New York: Wiley and Putnam, p. 37,
- 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.
- 1857, Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Daisy's Necklace: And What Came of It
- 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!
- 1922, Michael Arlen, “Ep./1/2”, in “Piracy”: A Romantic Chronicle of These Days:
- He walked. To the corner of Hamilton Place and Picadilly, and there stayed for a while, for it is a romantic station by night. The vague and careless rain looked like threads of gossamer silver passing across the light of the arc-lamps.
- 1997, Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things, New York: Random House, Chapter 2, p. 83,
- A gossamer blanket of coaldust floated down like a dirty blessing and gently smothered the traffic.
- 1845, Edgar Allan Poe, “The Black Cat” in Tales, New York: Wiley and Putnam, p. 37,
Synonyms
- gossamery
- gossamer-thin
Translations
tenuous, light, filmy or delicate
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References
- “gọ̄s-sŏmer, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
- “gossamer”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
- “gossamer”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary
- “gossamer”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
- Douglas Harper (2001–2023), “gossamer”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.
- Joseph Wright, editor (1900), “GO-HARVEST”, in The English Dialect Dictionary: […], volume II (D–G), London: Henry Frowde, […], publisher to the English Dialect Society, […]; New York, N.Y.: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, OCLC 81937840.
- “goesomer, n.” in the Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries: “”.
- Joseph Wright, editor (1900), “GO-SUMMER”, in The English Dialect Dictionary: […], volume II (D–G), London: Henry Frowde, […], publisher to the English Dialect Society, […]; New York, N.Y.: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, OCLC 81937840.
- Walter W. Skeat, An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language (2013 edition), page 246
- Ernest Weekley, An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English (1967), volume 1, page 653