Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The quality of being insubstantial; unsubstantiality.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun rare Unsubstantiality; unreality.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun The state or quality of being
insubstantial .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun lacking substance or reality
- noun lack of solid substance and strength
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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In this sense, the female form, both the body and the word, is invariably somehow tied to "ugly feelings" because of the supposed 'insubstantiality' of them – which is a point about the Sianne Ngai book that Silliman overlooks.
Bedtime Reading Dodie Bellamy 2008
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In this sense, the female form, both the body and the word, is invariably somehow tied to "ugly feelings" because of the supposed 'insubstantiality' of them – which is a point about the Sianne Ngai book that Silliman overlooks.
Archive 2008-08-01 Dodie Bellamy 2008
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In this sense, the female form, both the body and the word, is invariably somehow tied to "ugly feelings" because of the supposed 'insubstantiality' of them – which is a point about the Sianne Ngai book that Silliman overlooks.
David's comment Dodie Bellamy 2008
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Another popular recent way of delineating the Aristotelian intuition of the semantic "insubstantiality" of logical expressions appeals to the concept of "pure inferentiality".
Logical Truth Gómez-Torrente, Mario 2006
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Others (Gómez-Torrente 2002) have proposed that there may be a set of necessary and sufficient conditions, if these are not much related to the idea of semantic "insubstantiality" and are instead pragmatic and suitably vague; for example, many expressions are excluded directly by the condition of wide applicability; and prepositions are presumably excluded by some such implicit condition as "a logical expression must be one whose study is useful for the resolution of significant problems and fallacies in reasoning".
Logical Truth Gómez-Torrente, Mario 2006
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"insubstantiality", and may be somewhat unsatisfactory for that reason.
Logical Truth Gómez-Torrente, Mario 2006
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The scene is shrouded in mist or fog, giving it an aura of hushed insubstantiality.
Sweetness and Light: Reveling in Simplicity William Meyers 2011
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Ironically, it's the very weightlessness and insubstantiality of his dalliances, creepy though they seem, and their ADD nature, that makes them so toxic for him.
William Bradley: Weinergate's Lasting Impact: The First Big Social Media Political Sex Scandal William Bradley 2011
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Perhaps it was the sheer insubstantiality of what he was doing that led Weiner to be so incredibly reckless.
William Bradley: Weinergate's Lasting Impact: The First Big Social Media Political Sex Scandal William Bradley 2011
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Its apparent insubstantiality encourages the reader to think that maybe anyone could emulate her.
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