What's the difference between fragile and gossamer?

Fragile


Definition:

  • (a.) Easily broken; brittle; frail; delicate; easily destroyed.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The frequency of rare fragile sites was studied among 240 children in special schools for subnormal intelligence (IQ 52-85).
  • (2) A total of 13 ascertainments of folate sensitive autosomal fragile sites is observed, of which 10q23 fragility appears to be the most frequent.
  • (3) The fragile site at 10q25 was expressed in larger proportions of malignant than normal cells.
  • (4) The green fund contributions already announced (which include a $3bn pledge by the US and a $1.5bn pledge by Japan revealed during the G20 summit) “show very clearly that if we want the emerging countries and the more fragile countries to participate in this global growth, we have to ... support them,” Hollande said.
  • (5) Direct detection of the mutation enables the identification of fragile X negative normal transmitting males and fragile X negative carrier females.
  • (6) Tim Potter, managing director of support charity the Fragile X Society , adds that the challenges Tom faces in the film will give "hope and encouragement to many other families".
  • (7) A case of fragile-X syndrome (the Martin-Bell syndrome) in two male half-sibs from different marriages of their mother was described.
  • (8) Of the 188 males, 19 were found to have the fragile X syndrome, while the remaining 169 males had no recognizable cause of their mental retardation, including normal chromosomes.
  • (9) "The world economy remains in a deep recession and its financial system in a fragile condition," King said.
  • (10) A correlation between specific fragile sites and cancer breakpoints has been suggested raising the question of fragile site expression as a predisposing factor in the occurrence of cancer in some persons.
  • (11) Taking this into account, we derived equilibrium equations for the fragile X [fra(X)] genotype frequencies.
  • (12) An 18-year-old mentally retarded male with the Martin-Bell syndrome was fragile X positive.
  • (13) The problems Europe is having today could have a very real effect on our economy at a time when it's already fragile.
  • (14) The economics of the scene, she says, are "fragile".
  • (15) A significant relationship with heritable fragile sites was found in this study.
  • (16) It is associated with bony fragility, blue sclerae and abnormality of tooth dentin.
  • (17) The ankylosed spine may be fractured following relatively mild trauma attributable to loss of flexibility and increased fragility from osteoporosis.
  • (18) Apart from evidence of enhanced lysosomal and peroxisomal fragility, probably secondary to the intracellular oedema, the intracellular organelles investigated in this study were unaffected by the myopathic process.
  • (19) "The economy is still far too fragile to talk of a sustained recovery in the housing market, but the hope is that we are past the worst," he added.
  • (20) Of these new DNA markers, 5 lie in an interval defined as containing the fragile X region.

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".