What is the difference between insubstantial and diaphanous?
insubstantial | diaphanous | Synonyms |
Lacking substance; not real or strong.
Transparent or translucent; allowing light to pass through; capable of being seen through.
* 1899 , Joseph Conrad,
* 1999 , Nicholas Humphrey, A History of the Mind: Evolution and the Birth of Consciousness ,
* 2004 , , Margaret Maulden (translator), Madame Bovary: Provincial Manners ,
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* 1951', , Unpublished preface to a collection, '''2007 , Mark Richardson (editor), ''The Collected Prose of Robert Frost ,
* 1963', , quoted in '''1985 , Floyd Merrell, ''Deconstruction Reframed ,
Insubstantial is a synonym of diaphanous.
As adjectives the difference between insubstantial and diaphanous
is that insubstantial is lacking substance; not real or strong while diaphanous is transparent; allowing light to pass through; capable of being seen through.insubstantial
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- The bridge was insubstantial and would not safely carry a car.
Synonyms
* unsubstantial (archaic)Antonyms
* substantialdiaphanous
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- 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.
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).
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.
page 169,
- The most diaphanous wings carry a burden of pollen from flower to flower.
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).