gossamer

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A fine film made up of cobwebs, seen floating in the air or caught on bushes, etc.

   A lover may bestride the gossamer / That idles in the wanton summer air, / And yet not fall; so light is vanity.

2. 2
   noun

   A soft, sheer fabric.

   Madame wiped the picture with her gossamer handkerchief and impulsively pressed a tender kiss upon the painted canvas.

3. 3
   adj

   Tenuous, light, filmy or delicate.

   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.

Simplified etymology

Gossamer literally means “goose summer,” another name for St Martin’s Summer in early November, when geese were eaten. Fine cobwebs spun by small spiders are often seen floating in the air or spread over grass at that time of year, so these webs came to be called gossamer.

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”) and to have initially referred to a period of warm weather in late autumn when geese were eaten — compare Middle Scots goesomer, goe-summer (“summery weather in late autumn; St Martin's summer”) and dialectal English go-harvest, both later connected in folk-etymology to go — and to have been transferred to cobwebs because they were frequent then or because they were likened to goose-down. Skeat says...

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