unsubstantial

comparative more unsubstantial · superlative most unsubstantial

1. archaicInsubstantial.

   Psychoanalysis, the modern science of reading dreams, has taught us to take heed of these unsubstantial images.

   1968, Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, 2nd edition, London: Fontana Press, published 1993, page 8

   3 more examples

   What boots it, that my Fortune decks me thus / With unſubſtantial Plumes; when my Heart groans / Beneath the gay Capariſon, and Love / With unrequited Paſſion wounds my Soul!

   1749, [Tobias George Smollett], The Regicide: Or, James the First, of Scotland. A Tragedy. […], London: […] [F]or the benefit of the author, →OCLC, Act III, scene iv, page 37

   They are (said he) meer phantoms of ignorance and credulity, swelled up in the repetition, like those unsubstantial bubbles which the boys blow up in sopasuds with a tobacco pipe.

   1751, [Tobias] Smollett, chapter 89, in The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle […], volume III, London: Harrison and Co., […], →OCLC

   They shook hands upon it, and Sydney turned away. Within a minute afterward he was, to all outward appearance, as unsubstantial as ever.

   1859, Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC

   Synonyms: airy, aery, ethereal, diaphanous, immaterial, insubstantial, tenuous, unreal