Dictionary

gauzy en · ADJ

Etymology

Etymology tree English gauze Proto-Indo-European *-kos Proto-Germanic *-gaz Proto-West Germanic *-g Old English -iġ Middle English -y English -y English gauzy From gauze + -y.

Meanings

1. Resembling gauze; light, thin, translucent.
   • The water shone pacifically; the sky, without a speck, was a benign immensity of unstained light; the very mist on the Essex marshes 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, page 194:
   • But first I took up Ayesha's kirtle and the gauzy scarf with which she had been wont to hide her dazzling loveliness from the eyes of men, and, averting my head so that I might not look upon it, covered up that dreadful relic of the glorious dead, that shocking epitome of human beauty and human life. 1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:
   • Were she but the daring equestrienne jumping through the flaming hoops, little it would matter to her if her gauzy skirts did catch. 1907, Barbara Baynton, edited by Sally Krimmer and Alan Lawson, Human Toll (Portable Australian Authors: Barbara Baynton), St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, published 1980, page 185:
2. (figuratively) light; giving the effect of haze
3. (figuratively) vague or elusive
   • Or perhaps something darker—a raw hunger, a blind ambition wrapped in the gauzy language of service? 2020, Barack Obama, A Promised Land, Crown:
4. (figuratively) tinged with tenderness and warmth; dewy-eyed, romantic
   • 2003: Although the books are scored in different keys—Clinton’s generally attempts to be gauzy and warm, Blumenthal’s is edgy and cold—their underlying refrain is the same. — The New Yorker, 14 July 2003

Forms

Deriveds

gauziness · gauzily

Synonyms

gauzelike

Translations (8)

pl zwiewny (transparent, hazy) · nl wazig (transparent, hazy) · nl mistig (transparent, hazy) · de hauchdünn (transparent, hazy) · bg прозрачен (transparent, hazy) · bg прозирен (transparent, hazy) · nl nevelig (transparent, hazy) · de gazeartig (transparent, hazy)