Dictionary

diaphanous en · ADJ

Pronunciation

• /daɪˈæf.ən.əs/
• (US) audio

Etymology

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

Meanings

1. Transparent or translucent; allowing light to pass through; capable of being seen through.
   • 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. 1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part I:
   • 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. 2004, Gustave Flaubert, translated by Margaret Maulden, Madame Bovary: Provincial Manners, page 98:
   • 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. 1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 23:
   • 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). 1999, Nicholas Humphrey, A History of the Mind: Evolution and the Birth of Consciousness, page 96:
2. Of a fine, almost transparent, texture; gossamer; light and insubstantial.
   • 1963, Hermann Weyl, 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).
   • 1951, Robert Frost, Unpublished preface to a collection, 2007, Mark Richardson (editor), The Collected Prose of Robert Frost, page 169, The most diaphanous wings carry a burden of pollen from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.
3. Isorefractive, having an identical refractive index.

Forms

Antonyms

opaque · concrete · solid

Deriveds

undiaphanous · adiaphanous · semidiaphanous

Relateds

diaphanousness · diaphanously

Synonyms

sheer · delicate · see-through · transparent · sheer · translucent · insubstantial

Translations (42)

el διαφανής (transparent; allowing light to pass through) · fi harsomainen (of a fine, almost transparent texture) · sh proziran (transparent; allowing light to pass through) · grc διαφανής (transparent; allowing light to pass through) · fi läpikuultava (transparent; allowing light to pass through) · eo diafana (of a fine, almost transparent texture) · hu átlátszó (transparent; allowing light to pass through) · it trasparente (transparent; allowing light to pass through) · nl ragfijn (of a fine, almost transparent texture) · bg прозрачен (transparent; allowing light to pass through) · nl doorschijnend (transparent; allowing light to pass through) · de diaphan (of a fine, almost transparent texture) · es diáfano (transparent; allowing light to pass through) · sh providan (transparent; allowing light to pass through) · sv skir (of a fine, almost transparent texture) · nl doorzichtig (transparent; allowing light to pass through) · hu áttetsző (of a fine, almost transparent texture) · ota شفاف (of a fine, almost transparent texture) · it diafano (of a fine, almost transparent texture) · sh dijafan (of a fine, almost transparent texture) · bg прозирен (of a fine, almost transparent texture) · ca transparent (transparent; allowing light to pass through) · pl ażurowy (transparent; allowing light to pass through) · de durchscheinend (of a fine, almost transparent texture) · de diaphan (transparent; allowing light to pass through) · fr diaphane (of a fine, almost transparent texture) · io diafana (transparent; allowing light to pass through) · fr diaphane (transparent; allowing light to pass through) · ota شفاف (transparent; allowing light to pass through) · de durchscheinend (transparent; allowing light to pass through) · fi seitinohut (of a fine, almost transparent texture) · it ialino (transparent; allowing light to pass through) · tl masilim (of a fine, almost transparent texture) · ca diàfan (transparent; allowing light to pass through) · sh dijafan (transparent; allowing light to pass through) · oc diafan (of a fine, almost transparent texture) · fi hieno (of a fine, almost transparent texture) · sv florstunn (of a fine, almost transparent texture) · fi läpinäkyvä (transparent; allowing light to pass through) · ru прозра́чный (of a fine, almost transparent texture) · sv genomskinlig (transparent; allowing light to pass through) · de durchsichtig (transparent; allowing light to pass through)