GOSSAMER • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Gossamer

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/gˈɑsəmər/ Listen

noun

Gossamer n.

A fine, filmy substance, like cobwebs, floating in the air, in calm, clear weather, especially in autumn. It is seen in stubble fields and on furze or low bushes, and is formed by small spiders.

Any very thin gauzelike fabric; also, a thin waterproof stuff.

An outer garment, made of waterproof gossamer.

Gossamer spider (Zool.), any small or young spider which spins webs by which to sail in the air. See Ballooning spider.

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Etymology of 'Gossamer'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Gossamer" Quotes from Famous Books

... and melodious hum, which frequently swells to a startling sound as the cicada trills his sonorous drum on the sunny bark of some tall tree. At morning the dew hangs in diamond drops on the threads and gossamer which the spiders suspend across every pathway; and above the pool dragon flies, of more than metallic lustre, flash in the early sunbeams. The earth teems with countless ants, which emerge from beneath its surface, or make their devious highways to ascend ...

— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent

... carefully twice, rejecting, trying to shake off the bonds of custom and get down to primitive needs. At last we made a judicious selection. Everything old or worn was left; everything merely ornamental, except good lace, which was light. Gossamer evening dresses were all left. I calculated on taking two or three books that would bear the most reading if we were again shut up where none could be had, and so, of course, took Shakspere first. Here I was interrupted to go and pay a farewell visit, and when we returned Max had packed and ...

— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable

... central, idea to which all its component parts are related, and teaches a lesson of its own, so unobtrusively that we become possessed of it almost unawares. Some are intensely, even tragically, serious; others so light and airy that they seem as if woven out of gossamer. ...

— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns

... knowledge was a fact of such tremendous importance that it dwarfed to insignificance all the proud historic past of Dinwiddie. Her imagination, seizing upon this bit of actuality, spun around it the iridescent gossamer web of her fancy. She felt that it was sufficient happiness just to stand motionless for hours and let this thought take possession of her. Nothing else mattered as long as this ...

— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow

... destination, in the meridian of her glory. We have but little sympathy or patience for those who treat her as a mere Rosy Melindi—who are always fishing for pretty complements —who are satisfied by the gossamer of Romance, and who can be allured by the verbosity of high-flown words, rich in language, but poor and barren in sentiment. Beset, as she has been, by the intellectual vulgar, the selfish, the designing, the cunning, the hidden, and the artful—no wonder she has sometimes ...

— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

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