diaphanous

Definition

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

Etymology

From Medieval Latin diaphanus, from Ancient Greek διαφανής (diaphanḗs), from δια- (dia-, “through”) + φαίνω (phaínō, “to shine, appear”).

Example Sentences

• "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."
• "Adam requires a touch of feminine lace and a whisper of diaphanous silk, not a direct vision of the gaping maw of the human vulva."
• "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)."