Definitions
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A silk fabric having figures more translucent than the rest of the stuff.
- n. In anatomy, a cell-wall; the investing membrane of a cell or sac.
Wiktionary
- n. something transparent or diaphanous
- n. a woven silk stuff with transparent and colored figures
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A woven silk stuff with transparent and colored figures; diaper work.
Examples
“The liqueur diaphane, which is finally applied, renders them perfectly transparent.”
“French poet, has said, "L'allégorie habite un palais diaphane" -- _Allegory lives in a transparent palace.”
“Take great care to allow, whatever you use, time to dry before applying the liqueur diaphane.”
“She was _diaphane_, diaphanous ... impalpable as cigarette-smoke ... a little nose like nothing at all, with nostrils like infinitesimal sea-shells.”
“Champs-Elysées, du Sacre du printemps dont le scandale triomphal éclipsa totalement Jeux, une partition bien trop complexe, diaphane, subtile, ésotérique presque, que l'on a mis une cinquantaine d'années à comprendre réellement.”
“Conveniently enough, Stephen's thoughts immediately turn to color, nodding to the Aristotelian precept (via all that "diaphane, adiaphane" business) that what is seen is seen because it has color”
“Consider his approach: he begins with the general visual attribute of color, explores fully the related specifics of his surroundings ( "Snotgreen, bluesilver, rust: coloured signs"), acknowledges that vision alone has limits ( "Limits of the diaphane"), steps out of the visual modality and into the audible, and begins the process anew.”
“Une jeune femme, dont la délicate et elégante tournure, la peau blanche et diaphane, les cheveux blonds, les mouvemens onduleux, toute une tournure impossible à décrire autrement qu'en disant qu'elle était de toutes les créatures la plus gracieuse, lui donnaient l'aspect d'une de ces apparitions amenées par un rêve heureux ... il y avail de la Sylphide en elle.”
Lists
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Colinc References to diaphane, spelt "diafane", appear in Ezra Pound's Cantos. Robert Grosseteste (13th Cent.) was probably Pound's source: "For we see light not by itself but in a certain subject, and this is the diafane." Jul 15, 2009