1. The material of the small threads spun by baby spiders, as they hatch in late summer, that carry them through the air to their new lives.Gossamer retains its association with threads, Dr. Goodword tells us. "She brushed a bit of gossamer from her face with a gesture so gentle and graceful as to not damage it." It refers to lightness and sheerness at the very edge of visibility. As Cole Porter put it in his 1935 song, Just One of those Things: "[It was] Just one of those fabulous flights; A trip to the moon on gossamer wings; Just one of those things." We can assume that sprites and fairies are equipped with gossamer wings.
2. Anything extremely sheer, filmy or flimsy; possessed of lightness and softness approaching nothingness.
History: Gossamer is a smoothed version of Middle English gos(e)somer "goose-summer," a shortening of goose-summer thread. Goose-summer apparently referred to Indian summer, the hot part of fall, when gossamer threads tend to drift about. The goose month (German Gänsemonat) is November, the time when geese are at their fattest and best for eating. There is a semantic connection with German Sommerfäden, Dutch zomerdraden, and Swedish sommartråd "summer thread".
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