diaphaneity

[dih-af-uh-nee-i-tee, dahy-uh-fuh-]

noun

1. the quality of being diaphanous; transparency.

Word History and Origins

Origin of diaphaneity¹

1650–60; < Greek diaphanḗ ( s ) showing through + -ity

Example Sentences

On one occasion the scryer could see nothing, “the crystal preserved its natural diaphaneity,” as Dr Dee says; and there were failures with two or three inquirers.

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It is neither young nor old, the Face; it has a vapory indefinableness that leaves it a riddle; its diaphaneity reveals no particular tint; perhaps you may not even be quite sure whether it has a beard.

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An amazing picture rose in the minds of the Tory breakfasters�that of a fashionable church, wall-eyed ushers, pretty bridesmaids, a young bridegroom of an excellent Washington family and, amid all the diaphaneity of lace and flowers so dewily described by the Times reporter, a bride who wheeled upon the shocked congregation a dusky face.

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We had barely stepped out from the narrow doorway of the restaurant into a tenuous, moon-saturated mist, a low-lying diaphaneity that left the upper air-lanes openly clear, when the sirens were wailing again from every quarter of the city. . . .

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From the conversation which followed I was able to learn that his neighbor, blond and wan almost to diaphaneity, taciturn and sarcastic, was Boulmier, a fellow-student.

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Related Words

• elegance 
• fragility www.thesaurus.com
• lightness 
• subtlety 
• tenderness www.thesaurus.com