(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".
Subtle
Definition:
(superl.) Sly in design; artful; cunning; insinuating; subtile; -- applied to persons; as, a subtle foe.
(superl.) Cunningly devised; crafty; treacherous; as, a subtle stratagem.
(superl.) Characterized by refinement and niceness in drawing distinctions; nicely discriminating; -- said of persons; as, a subtle logician; refined; tenuous; sinuous; insinuating; hence, penetrative or pervasive; -- said of the mind; its faculties, or its operations; as, a subtle intellect; a subtle imagination; a subtle process of thought; also, difficult of apprehension; elusive.
(superl.) Smooth and deceptive.
Example Sentences:
(1) As a group, the three mammalian proteins resemble bovine serum conglutinin and behave as lectins with rather broad sugar specificities directed at certain non-reducing terminal N-acetylglucosamine, mannose, glucose and fucose residues, but with subtle differences in fine specificities.
(2) But it will be a subtle difference, because it's already abundantly clear there's no danger of the war being suddenly forgotten, or made to seem irrelevant to our sense of what Europe and the world has to avoid repeating.
(3) Communicating sustainability is a subtle attempt at doing good Read more And yet, in environmental terms it is infinitely preferable to prevent waste altogether, rather than recycle it.
(4) If, indeed, there is an immunologic basis for pre-eclampsia, it is more subtle than the methodology used in this study is capable of detecting.
(5) Subtle differences between Chicago urban and Grand Forks rural climates are reflected in arthritic subjects' degree of pain and their perception of pain-related stress.
(6) Critical in this understanding are the subtle changes that occur in the individual patient, reflecting the natural history of the disease or response to its treatment.
(7) Subtle cognitive deficits in Inferential Reading Comprehension were detected when Reading Vocabulary was at or better than a twelfth grade level.
(8) This histochemical difference corresponded to more subtle differences in Nissl and myelin staining patterns, and suggests further structural subdivisions of potential functional significance.
(9) Thus, luciferase transcriptional fusions can detect subtle variations in initial rates of gene expression in a real-time, nondestructive assay.
(10) The binding of [3H]PAF to washed human platelets indicated subtle changes between Days 2 and 4, which became more noticeable by Day 6.
(11) In this study the temperature dependence of the reactivity of aldolase SH groups is investigated in order to detect subtle changes in the enzyme conformation.
(12) The crucial issue of whether subtle behavioral, intellectual, and developmental impairment occurs in young children, as a result of lead-induced CNS damage is discussed in detail.
(13) Historically, what made SNL’s campaign coverage so necessary was its ability to highlight the subtle absurdities of the election and exaggerate the ridiculous.
(14) It is believed that by looking at such subtle shape differences an understanding of what it means morphologically for a primate to be either more or less arboreal may be achieved.
(15) The current magnetic resonance imaging system with computerized image processing is a sensitive and simple method for evaluation of subtle parenchymal changes of the brain.
(16) Fundus examination disclosed a subtle cherry red spot bilaterally.
(17) Ependymal cells developed luminal fronds that projected into the ventricle and the subpial glia displayed a very subtle gliosis in the form of thin multi-laminated processes.
(18) The rapidity of obtaining the results (within one hour), the complete absence of untoward reactions to the radiopharmaceuticals, the much lower frequency of subtle or indeterminate results, the ability to render useful information in the presence of moderate jaundice and the lack of interference from overlying intestinal contents establishes these radionuclide agents as superior to both radiographic oral and intravenous cholangiography in the investigation of the acute abdomen.
(19) Moreover, subtle improvements observed in earlier investigations were not confirmed.
(20) Various compounds show subtle but significant differences in blood clearance, excretion, and soft-tissue uptake.