(n.) The network spread by a spider to catch its prey.
(n.) A snare of insidious meshes designed to catch the ignorant and unwary.
(n.) That which is thin and unsubstantial, or flimsy and worthless; rubbish.
(n.) The European spotted flycatcher.
Example Sentences:
(1) The dream has allowed us to ignore that our social safety net has been shredded into cobwebs, because the dream tells us that if we work hard enough, we won’t ever need a net.
(2) Outside, the ancient trees provide a habitat for several rare insect species, including the cobweb beetle, and many bats, such as the noctule, that like to eat them.
(3) This article also suggests some defences in the event that physicians get involved in the legal cobweb.
(4) That was in March 2012, more than six years after the offence, by which time this particular scandal had cobwebs on it, and Harper had won two more elections, in November 2008 and May 2011.
(5) There’s no better way to shed the cobwebs from the night before than with a blast of rain-fresh Dublin air and a stretch of the legs.
(6) Tottenham’s Denmark playmaker had not completed 90 minutes since 15 August, a knee injury hampering his early-season form, but two free-kick equalisers blew away the cobwebs here and ensured deserved parity for his team in a vibrant game characterised by swagger on the ball and defensive jitters off it.
(7) Formation of inner protein nidus in the form of a cobweb is the first stage, then calcite is deposited on this fibrous network as tiny crystals.
(8) Our sonographic examination showed a large multilocular cyst with a cluster of honeycomb cysts revealing a cobweb appearance, which correlated with the pathologic specimen, and revealed characteristics of the disease.
(9) The SEM showed that admixed with normal-looking portions, there were abnormal portions of the elastic fibers which were composed of many unusual fine fibers (5-22 nm in diameter), and had a cobweb-like appearance.
(10) Lovely as it is, on a sunny summer's day Plockton can start to feel crowded and there's nothing like this hike to the summit of the crags which loom over the village to blow the cobwebs from your hair, taking in the view of the village and its stunning coastal setting.
(11) Now, once again, people mostly understand the complex cobweb of social interactions.
(12) Awareness of these CT findings, including early equivalent enhancement of the inferior vena cava and aorta; enlarged, poorly functioning kidney; and perirenal "cobwebs," will lead to the appropriate confirmatory angiographic studies.
(13) Director Steve McQueen's determined appreciation of the sedate, haunted beauty of the landscape, with ghostly cobwebs of Spanish moss trailing over shimmering bayous, throws the evils of violence and slavery into even sharper relief.
(14) No matter how they rage against injustice, his team-mates should appreciate in some cobwebbed corner of their minds that they were outplayed.
(15) Cobwebs, heavy with dead flies, hung above our heads.
(16) I am sure many people find it difficult to settle down to watch a DVD with a cobweb hanging behind the TV.
(17) Minnelli's many neuroses are freely at play in these movies, and never more so than in the mental hospital melodrama The Cobweb, in which a range of now-defunct pathologies – ah, frigidity and nymphomania, where have you gone?
(18) Police say the room used as an operating theatre was hung with cobwebs, and that the fast turnover of operations meant there was no time to change bloodied sheets.
(19) The Dracula Experience ( adults £3, kids £2.50), with its trailing cobwebs and dangling rubber bats is the ultimate, slightly rubbish rainy day seaside attraction.
(20) Fecal specimens and soil or cobweb samples were collected from each farm and cultured on selective media.
Gossamer
Definition:
(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.
(n.) Any very thin gauzelike fabric; also, a thin waterproof stuff.
(n.) An outer garment, made of waterproof gossamer.
Example Sentences:
(1) A Gustav Klimt portrait of a beautiful young woman wrapped in folds of white gossamer sold for £24.8m on Wednesday night, one of the highlights of the big-money London auctions.
(2) Dave meanwhile lapsed into his shrill Bullingdon Club persona; the dividing line between self confidence and smugness is gossamer thin for the prime minister.
(3) At the same time, he largely dispensed with his breathless, gossamer sentences, which often teetered on the brink of preciousness and whimsy, and ushered in a style that was much leaner and more sinewy: "Dick!
(4) He may be lithe and louche and blessed with a gossamer touch but he is fearless too, not just decorating this team but driving it on too.
(5) With an illustrious history of materials innovation, Britain is well placed to put this carbon gossamer to work – not least, Cambridge boasts world-leading specialists in the technology of flexible, polymer-based electronics and display screens, one of the areas in which graphene looks most likely to make a mark.
(6) Such is the innate astonishingness of a drama in which historical integrity is hewn from Lego and logic is something to be bummed by one's brother-in-law behind a gossamer curtain (Ye Terry's Fabrics, £3.89 a yarde).
(7) Photograph: Sothebys The beautiful girl swathed in white gossamer was Gertrud Loew, the 19-year-old daughter of Anton Loew, a celebrated physician who ran an opulent private sanatorium beside his palatial home in Vienna, where his patients included the composer Gustav Mahler and the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein.
(8) For the Bale money Christian Eriksen has been a lovely, gossamer, wispy little No10 , both oddly peripheral and oddly incisive at the same time.
(9) It’s also put together with a lissom confidence and a breeziness that more than compensates for a gossamer lightness when it comes to substance.” Hail, Caesar!
(10) Silvestre Varela poked home his first Premier League goal at the end of a run from halfway, a simple exchange of passes with Sessègnon enough to bamboozle a Rangers defence in which Richard Dunne twice lost his man, turning and twisting with all the gossamer grace of a fully laden municipal dustcart.
(11) But Malick's wispy, gossamer qualities, his organic, handheld imagery – always seeking wonder in harmony and balance – seem in total opposition to Kubrick's head-on, locked-down fish-eye compositions, his fanatically precise tracking-shots, sudden upsurges of brutal violence and abiding pessimism.
(12) Were a new Clifton bridge to be designed today, it might be a thing of gossamer-thin polymer cables, a spider's web of materials as strong as Atlas, yet entirely free of architectural clothing.
(13) The seven-time former champion is finally able to put the squeeze on Wawrinka, turning the tiebreak his way with a brace of brilliant forehand volleys; the first spun like gossamer, the second punched hard in anger.
(14) Huhne's lawyer argued the case against him was "at best gossamer thin" with no evidence of him having participated in any crime.
(15) 4) While he could say nothing else other than that he "believes rate cut is effective" to then follow it up with "some would say reduction in excess liquidity is due to less fragmentation" and, that the rate cut "reduces fragmentation in the periphery" is pushing on a gossamer thin bit of string, the more so when he continued later with this particular bit of bravado: "fundamentals in the Eurozone are probably strongest in the world", while saying that the recovery is "proceeding, but is weak and fragile".
(16) Kent bundles may be identified at the time of surgery but they appear to be gossamer structures usually destroyed during surgical manipulation of the coronary sulcus.
(17) They were all romancers, metaphysicals, dabblers in literary alchemy determined to spin gossamer filigree out of the apparently unpromising stuff of American life.
(18) The case, Kelsey-Fry had argued at a pre-trial hearing, was "gossamer thin".