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Diaphanous vs Clear - What's the difference?

diaphanous | clear |

As an adjective diaphanous

is transparent or translucent; allowing light to pass through; capable of being seen through.

As a noun clear is

(scientology) an idea state of beingness free of unwanted influences.

diaphanous

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Transparent or translucent; allowing light to pass through; capable of being seen through.
  • * 1899 , Joseph Conrad,
  • The water shone pacifically; the sky, without a speck, was a benign immensity of unstained light; the very mist on the Essex marsh was like a gauzy and radiant fabric, hung from the wooded rises inland, and draping the low shores in diaphanous folds.
  • * 1999 , Nicholas Humphrey, A History of the Mind: Evolution and the Birth of Consciousness , page 96,
  • But nonetheless the purpleness of the imagined purple cow will almost certainly be meaner, more diaphanous , more fleeting than any real-life purple that you ever saw: to imagine a purple cow is just not the same thing as to have a purple sensation (or at least a purple sensation worth the name).
  • * 2004 , , Margaret Maulden (translator), Madame Bovary: Provincial Manners , page 98,
  • The evening mist, drifting among the leafless poplars, veiled their silhouettes with a violet film, paler and more translucent than the most diaphanous gauze that might have caught in their branches.
  • Of a fine, almost transparent, texture; gossamer; light and insubstantial.
  • * 1951', , Unpublished preface to a collection, '''2007 , Mark Richardson (editor), ''The Collected Prose of Robert Frost , page 169,
  • The most diaphanous wings carry a burden of pollen from flower to flower.
  • * 1963', , quoted in '''1985 , Floyd Merrell, ''Deconstruction Reframed , page 67,
  • What is amazing is that "a concept that is created by mind itself, the sequence of integers, the simplest and most diaphanous thing for the constructive mind, assumes a similar aspect of obscurity and deficiency when viewed from the axiomatic angle" (Weyl, 1963, 220).

    Synonyms

    * (allowing light to pass through) translucent * delicate, insubstantial

    Antonyms

    * (transparent or translucent) opaque * concrete, solid

    clear

    English

    Alternative forms

    * (contraction used in electronics)

    Adjective

    (er)
  • Transparent in colour.
  • Bright, not dark or obscured.
  • Free of obstacles.
  • * , chapter=1
  • , title= Mr. Pratt's Patients, chapter=1 , passage=Pretty soon I struck into a sort of path
  • Without clouds.
  • *
  • Serene, smiling, enigmatic, she faced him with no fear whatever showing in her dark eyes. The clear light of the bright autumn morning had no terrors for youth and health like hers.
  • (lb) Of the sky, such that less than one eighth of its area is obscured by clouds.
  • Free of ambiguity or doubt.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-08, volume=407, issue=8839, page=52, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= The new masters and commanders , passage=From the ground, Colombo’s port does not look like much.
  • Distinct, sharp, well-marked.
  • (lb) Free of guilt, or suspicion.
  • * (Alexander Pope) (1688-1744)
  • Statesman, yet friend to truth! in soul sincere, / In action faithful, and in honour clear .
  • (lb) Without a thickening ingredient.
  • Possessing little or no perceptible stimulus.
  • (lb) Free from the influence of engrams; see .
  • Able to perceive clearly; keen; acute; penetrating; discriminating.
  • * (John Milton) (1608-1674)
  • Mother of science! now I feel thy power / Within me clear , not only to discern / Things in their causes, but to trace the ways / Of highest agents.
  • Not clouded with passion; serene; cheerful.
  • * (William Shakespeare) (c.1564–1616)
  • With a countenance as clear / As friendship wears at feasts.
  • Easily or distinctly heard; audible.
  • * (Alexander Pope) (1688-1744)
  • Hark! the numbers soft and clear / Gently steal upon the ear.
  • Unmixed; entirely pure.
  • Without defects or blemishes, such as freckles or knots.
  • Without diminution; in full; net.
  • * (Jonathan Swift) (1667–1745)
  • I often wished that I had clear , / For life, six hundred pounds a year.

    Antonyms

    * obscure * (of a soup) thick

    Derived terms

    * as clear as a bell * as clear as day * as clear as mud * clarity * clearly * clearness * crystal clear * free and clear * in the clear * keep a clear head * keep clear

    Adverb

    (-)
  • All the way; entirely.
  • I threw it clear across the river to the other side.
  • Not near something or touching it.
  • Stand clear of the rails, a train is coming.
  • free (or separate) from others
  • * {{quote-news
  • , year=2010 , date=December 29 , author=Chris Whyatt , title=Chelsea 1 - 0 Bolton , work=BBC citation , page= , passage=Much soul-searching is going on at the west London club who, just seven weeks ago, were five points clear at the top of the table and playing with the verve with which they won the title last season. }}
  • (obsolete) In a clear manner; plainly.
  • * (rfdate) (Milton)
  • Now clear I understand.
  • *
  • *
  • *
  • *
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  • Verb

    (en verb)
  • (lb) To remove obstructions or impediments from.
  • *1715–8 , (Matthew Prior), “Alma: or, The Progre?s of the Mind” in Poems on Several Occa?ions (1741), canto III, p.297:
  • *:Faith, Dick, I mu?t confe?s, ?tis true // (But this is only Entre Nous ) // That many knotty Points there are, // Which All di?cu?s, but Few can clear .
  • *(Joseph Addison) (1672–1719)
  • *:A statue lies hid in a block of marble; and the art of the statuary only clears away the superfluous matter.
  • *{{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
  • , chapter=7 citation , passage=‘Children crawled over each other like little grey worms in the gutters,’ he said. ‘The only red things about them were their buttocks and they were raw. Their faces looked as if snails had slimed on them and their mothers were like great sick beasts whose byres had never been cleared .
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-29, volume=407, issue=8842, page=29, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= Unspontaneous combustion , passage=Since the mid-1980s, when Indonesia first began to clear' its bountiful forests on an industrial scale in favour of lucrative palm-oil plantations, “haze” has become an almost annual occurrence in South-East Asia. The cheapest way to ' clear logged woodland is to burn it, producing an acrid cloud of foul white smoke that, carried by the wind, can cover hundreds, or even thousands, of square miles.}}
  • (lb) To become freed from obstructions.
  • :
  • *
  • *:“A tight little craft,” was Austin’s invariable comment on the matron; and she looked it, always trim and trig and smooth of surface like a converted yacht cleared for action. ¶ Near her wandered her husband, orientally bland, invariably affable,.
  • (lb) To eliminate ambiguity or doubt from a matter; to clarify; especially, to clear up.
  • (lb) To remove from suspicion, especially of having committed a crime.
  • :
  • *(John Dryden) (1631-1700)
  • *:Iam sure he will clear me from partiality.
  • *(Joseph Addison) (1672–1719)
  • *:Wouldst thou clear rebellion?
  • (lb) To pass without interference; to miss.
  • :
  • (lb) To become clear.
  • :
  • (lb) Of a check or financial transaction, to go through as payment; to be processed so that the money is transferred.
  • :
  • To earn a profit of; to net.
  • :
  • * (1800-1859)
  • the profit which she cleared on the cargo
  • (lb) To obtain permission to use (a sample of copyrighted audio) in another track.
  • To disengage oneself from incumbrances, distress, or entanglements; to become free.
  • *1613 , (Francis Bacon), (second edition), essay 18: “ Of Expences”:
  • *:Be?ides, he that cleares' at once will relap?e: for finding him?elfe out of ?traights, he will reuert to his cu?tomes. But hee that ' cleareth by degrees, induceth an habite of frugality, and gaineth as well vpon his minde, as vpon his E?tate.
  • To obtain a clearance.
  • :
  • (lb) To defend by hitting (or kicking, throwing, heading etc.) the ball (or puck) from the defending goal.
  • *{{quote-news, year=2010, date=December 29, author=Chris Whyatt, title=Chelsea 1-0 Bolton
  • , work=BBC citation , passage=Bolton then went even closer when Elmander's cross was met by a bullet header from Holden, which forced a wonderful tip over from Cech before Drogba then cleared the resulting corner off the line.}}
  • To fell all trees of a forest.
  • To reset or unset; to return to an empty state or to zero.
  • :
  • Synonyms

    * (clear a forest) stub

    Derived terms

    * clear away * clear off * clear out * clear up * clearance * clearing

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (carpentry) Full extent; distance between extreme limits; especially; the distance between the nearest surfaces of two bodies, or the space between walls.
  • a room ten feet square in the clear

    Statistics

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