gossamer

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English[edit]

WOTD – 19 January 2006

Etymology[edit]

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 Old Scots goesomer, goe-summer (“summery weather in late autumn; St Martin's summer”)[1] (later connected in folk-etymology to go)[5][6][7] — 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".[8] Weekley notes that both the webs and the weather have fantastical names in most European languages:[9] compare German Altweibersommer (“Indian summer; cobwebs, gossamer”, literally “old wives' summer”) and other terms listed there.

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

gossamer (countable and uncountable, plural gossamers)

  1. A fine film or strand as of cobwebs, floating in the air or caught on bushes, etc.
  2. A soft, sheer fabric.
  3. Anything delicate, light and flimsy.

Derived terms[edit]

Translations[edit]

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

Adjective[edit]

gossamer (comparative more gossamer, superlative most gossamer)

  1. Tenuous, light, filmy or delicate.
    • 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.

Synonyms[edit]

Translations[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 “gọ̄s-sŏmer, n.” in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 “gossamer” in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 “gossamer” in Merriam–Webster Online Dictionary.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 “gossamer” in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 “gossamer” in Douglas Harper, Online Etymology Dictionary, 2001–2021.
  6. ^ “goesomer, n.” in the Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries: “”.
  7. ^ “GO-SUMMER” in Joseph Wright, editor, The English Dialect Dictionary: […], volume II (D–G), London: Published by Henry Frowde, […], publisher to the English Dialect Society, […]; New York, N.Y.: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1900, →OCLC.
  8. ^ Walter W. Skeat, An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language (2013 edition), page 246
  9. ^ Ernest Weekley, An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English (1967), volume 1, page 653
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