Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Sufficiently thin or airy as to be translucent.
- adjective Of such fine composition as to be easily damaged or broken; delicate.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Transmitting light; permitting the passage of light; transparent; clear; translucent.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Allowing light to pass through, as porcelain; translucent or transparent; pellucid; clear.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective
Transparent ; allowinglight to pass through; capable of beingseen through. - adjective Of a
fine , almosttransparent texture , e.g.gossamer .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective so thin as to transmit light
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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He introduces two female dancers, Silvina Cortés and Olga Cobos, who dip and skim in diaphanous shifts, and although crafted with typical Maliphant precision, this new material is inconsequential and ultimately soporific.
Russell Maliphant company Luke Jennings 2010
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I think she deserves credit for using the word diaphanous & spelling it correctly.
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I have no clue how many people are here, but it is a picture-perfect summer evening, breezy and bathed in diaphanous (I've always loved that word) light.
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A Pierrette -- in short, diaphanous muslin, her face whitened to match it; a Pierrette who stood slowly spinning on her toes, with arms raised and hands joined in an arch above her glistening hair.
Beyond John Galsworthy 1900
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A Pierrette -- in short, diaphanous muslin, her face whitened to match it; a Pierrette who stood slowly spinning on her toes, with arms raised and hands joined in an arch above her glistening hair.
Complete Project Gutenberg John Galsworthy Works John Galsworthy 1900
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Designer Ashleigh Verrier said her favorite fashion word was "diaphanous" -- an adjective characterizing fineness of texture.
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"I never picked up on them until I started to see sheer versions," she said, referring to diaphanous varieties that appeared on spring runways at Jil Sander, Chloe, Marc Jacobs and Lanvin, among others.
The Seattle Times 2011
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The researchers identified a mutation in the DIAPH3 gene that causes over-production of a compound known as a diaphanous protein.
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The researchers identified a mutation in the DIAPH3 gene that causes over-production of a compound known as a diaphanous protein.
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The researchers identified a mutation in the DIAPH3 gene that causes over-production of a compound known as a diaphanous protein.
Spero News 2010
fbharjo commented on the word diaphanous
"to show through" "to shine through" literally
July 14, 2007
arby commented on the word diaphanous
I don't care for this word - it reminds me of diapers.
August 12, 2007
trivet commented on the word diaphanous
This word seems to be rather the opposite of diapers...
August 13, 2007
arby commented on the word diaphanous
I know, but it still has those first 4 characters that irresistably remind me of diapers, maybe because those are the only two words I know of that have that sequence, at least in English.
Can you imagine diaphanous diapers, how gross would that be?!?!
August 21, 2007
reesetee commented on the word diaphanous
Oh, yuck.
August 21, 2007
patchouli commented on the word diaphanous
diaphragm is actually the closest phonetically and spelling-wise.
September 2, 2007
lostsoul commented on the word diaphanous
It makes me think of the Roman Goddess Diana in a flowing, gossamer-like gown.
December 3, 2007
bookhling commented on the word diaphanous
Reminds me of the incredibly thin stalactite curtains in some caves. It was beautiful.
October 2, 2008
bodhi commented on the word diaphanous
Don't like this word, it's pretentious and flowery without having any real beauty to it.
October 2, 2008
bilby commented on the word diaphanous
That's precisely how I feel about bodhi, no offence.
October 2, 2008
knitandpurl commented on the word diaphanous
"Between the two Balbec settings, so different one from the other, there was an interval of several years in Paris, the long expanse of which was dotted with all the visits that Albertine had paid me. I saw her in the different years of my life occupying, in relation to myself, different positions which made me feel the beauty of the intervening spaces, that long lapse of time during which I had remained without seeing her and in the diaphanous depths of which the roseate figure that I saw before me was carved with mysterious shadows and in bold relief. This was due also to the superimposition not merely of the successive images which Albertine had been for me, but also of the great qualities of intelligence and heart, and of the defects of character, all alike unsuspected by me, which Albertine, in a germination, a multiplication of herself, a fleshy efflorescence in sombre colours, had added to a nature that formerly could scarcely have been said to exist, but was now difficult to plumb."
--The Captive & The Fugitive by Marcel Proust, translated by C.K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin, revised by D.J. Enright, p 83 of the Modern Library paperback edition
December 29, 2009
knitandpurl commented on the word diaphanous
"Either swift-moving and bent over the mythological wheel of her bicycle, strapped on rainy days inside the warrior tunic of her waterproof which moulded her breasts, her head turbaned and dressed with snakes, when she spread terror through the streets of Balbec; or else on the evenings when we had taken champagne into the woods of Chantepie, her voice provocative and altered, her face suffused with warm pallor, reddened only on the cheekbones, and when, unable to make it out in the darkness of the carriage, I drew her into the moonlight in order to see it more clearly, the face I was now trying in vain to recapture, to see again in a darkness that would never end. A little statuette on the drive to the island in the Bois, a still and plump face with coarse-grained skin at the pianola, she was thus by turns rain-soaked and swift, provoking and diaphanous, motionless and smiling, an angel of music."
-- The Captive & The Fugitive by Marcel Proust, translated by C.K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin, revised by D.J. Enright, p 659 of the Modern Library paperback edition
February 15, 2010
benw commented on the word diaphanous
"The water shone pacifically; the sky, without a speck, was a benign immensity of unstained light; the very mist on the Essex marshes was like a gauzy and radiant fabric, hung from the wooded rises inland, and draping the low shores in diaphanous folds."
—Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
January 6, 2011
duckbill commented on the word diaphanous
"I remember once handling an automatic belonging to a fellow student, in the days . . . when I toyed with the idea of enjoying his little sister, a most diaphanous nymphet with a black hair bow, and then shooting myself."
Nabokov, Lolita, page 29
March 1, 2011