gossamer

Etymology

From Middle English gossomer, gosesomer, gossummer (attested since around 1300, and only in reference to webs or other light things), usually thought to derive from gos (“goose”) + somer (“summer”) and to have initially referred to a period of warm weather in late autumn when geese were eaten — compare Middle Scots goesomer, goe-summer (“summery weather in late autumn; St Martin's summer”) and dialectal English go-harvest, both later connected in folk-etymology to go) — and to have been transferred to cobwebs because they were frequent then or because they were likened to goose-down. Skeat says that in Craven the webs were called summer-goose, and compares Scots and dialectal English use of summer-colt in reference to "exhalations seen rising from the ground in hot weather". Weekley notes that both the webs and the weather have fantastical names in most European languages: compare German Altweibersommer (“Indian summer; cobwebs, gossamer”, literally “old wives' summer”) and other terms listed there.

noun

1. A fine film or strand as of cobwebs, floating in the air or caught on bushes, etc.
   The dew and gossamer had dried early from the grass 1972, Richard Adams, Watership Down, Penguin, published 1974, Part 2, Chapter 26, p. 233
2. A soft, sheer fabric.
   Madame wiped the picture with her gossamer handkerchief and impulsively pressed a tender kiss upon the painted canvas. 1894, Kate Chopin, “A Lady of Bayou St. John”, in Bayou Folk, Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, page 306
   She takes a large, gossamer scarf from the trunk and drapes it about her shoulders. 1947, Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire, New York: Signet, Scene 5, p. 84
   a circle of popes or maybe bishops in white gossamer robes 2013, Rachel Kushner, chapter 14, in The Flamethrowers, New York: Scribner, page 231
3. Anything delicate, light and flimsy.

adj

1. Tenuous, light, filmy or delicate.
   There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes directly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere Man. 1845, Edgar Allan Poe, “The Black Cat”, in Tales, New York: Wiley and Putnam, page 37
   The heaven was spangled with tremulous stars, and at the horizon the clouds hung down in gossamer folds—God's robe trailing in the sea! 1857, Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Daisy's Necklace: And What Came of It
   He walked. To the corner of Hamilton Place and Picadilly, and there stayed for a while, for it is a romantic station by night. The vague and careless rain looked like threads of gossamer silver passing across the light of the arc-lamps. 1922, Michael Arlen, “Ep./1/2”, in “Piracy”: A Romantic Chronicle of These Days
   A gossamer blanket of coaldust floated down like a dirty blessing and gently smothered the traffic. 1997, Arundhati Roy, chapter 2, in The God of Small Things, New York: Random House, page 83