Imaginary vs Gossamer - What's the difference?
imaginary | gossamer | Related terms |
existing only in the imagination
* Addison
(mathematics) of a number, having no real part; that part of a complex number which is a multiple of the square root of -1.
Imagination; fancy.
* 2002 , , The Great Nation , Penguin 2003, p. 324:
(mathematics) An imaginary quantity.
A fine film or strand as of cobwebs, floating in the air or caught on bushes etc.
A soft, sheer fabric.
Anything delicate, light and flimsy.
Tenuous, light, filmy or delicate.
* (Thomas Bailey Aldrich) (1836-1907)
*{{quote-book, year=1922, author=(Michael Arlen), title=
, passage=He walked. To the corner of Hamilton Place and Picadilly, and there stayed for a while, for it is a romantic station by night. The vague and careless rain looked like threads of gossamer silver passing across the light of the arc-lamps.}}
Imaginary is a related term of gossamer.
As adjectives the difference between imaginary and gossamer
is that imaginary is existing only in the imagination while gossamer is tenuous, light, filmy or delicate.As nouns the difference between imaginary and gossamer
is that imaginary is imagination; fancy while gossamer is a fine film or strand as of cobwebs, floating in the air or caught on bushes etc.imaginary
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- Wilt thou add to all the griefs I suffer / Imaginary ills and fancied tortures?
Derived terms
* imaginarily * imaginarinessNoun
(imaginaries)- By then too Mozart's opera, from Da Ponte's libretto, had made Figaro a stock character in the European imaginary and set the whole Continent whistling Mozartian airs and chuckling at Figaresque humour.
External links
* (Imaginary number)gossamer
English
Noun
Derived terms
* gossamery (adjective)Adjective
(en adjective)- The heaven was spangled with tremulous stars, and at the horizon the clouds hung down in gossamer folds—God's robe trailing in the sea!
“Piracy”: A Romantic Chronicle of These Days, chapter=Ep./1/2