gossamery

comparative more gossamery · superlative most gossamery

1. Like gossamer; flimsy.

   The Italian poet, [Giambattista] Marino, had been reputed the greatest master of gossamery affectation in Europe.

   1846 April, Thomas De Quincey, “John Keats”, in Sketches: Critical and Biographic (De Quincey’s Works; VI), London: James Hogg & Sons, →OCLC, page 283

   1 more example

   She fluttered about him with her hair down in a thick brown braid across each shoulder, and in a gossamery, filmy, lacy “thing”—she had flung her gay-colored cloak upon a chair—that he was very much afraid was not quite a proper thing to wear before a young gentleman whom she had just met.

   1916, Jackson Gregory, If the Shoe Fits, Chapter 3