adumbration
Americannoun
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a shadow or faint image of something.
In the south, where the Tibetan plateau begins its gradual rise, we can just glimpse the hazy adumbration of its mountains above the undulating horizon.
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a foreshadowing of or precursor to something.
Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy of 1808 serves in every way as an adumbration of the Ninth Symphony.
The essay is a fascinating adumbration of an idea that would become the author’s obsession six months later.
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concealment or overshadowing.
The haunting tune reflects the sad adumbration of the heroine’s emotional priorities as she rejects her prospective lover.
Etymology
Origin of adumbration
First recorded in 1530–1540; adumbrat(e) ( def. ) + -ion ( def. )
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
