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Next time you dress your heroine for a ball, you may want to describe her gown in terms of its lightness and delicacy. Here are some nouns and adjectives for the job.
chiffon n. – a diaphanous plain-woven fabric of fine hard-twisted yarn
diaphanous adj. – permitting the free passage of light and vision; perfectly transparent; pellucid.
filmy adj. – resembling a film, of extremely delicate texture, gauze-like; consisting of slender filaments, as of gossamer.
gauzy adj. – of the nature of, or resembling, gauze. gauze n. a very thin, transparent fabric of silk, linen, or cotton.
gossamer – n. a fine filmy substance, consisting of cobwebs, spun by small spiders, which is seen floating in the air in calm weather, esp. in autumn, or spread over a grassy surface; gossamer adj. light and flimsy as gossamer.
insubstantial – not existing in substance or reality; not real; imaginary, illusive; non-substantial.
lace - a slender open-work fabric of linen, cotton, silk, woollen, or metal threads, usually ornamented with inwrought or applied patterns.
organdy – a fine but stiff, translucent kind of muslin. NOTE: organdy is a see-through fabric, but not something to dress your heroine if you like her. It is really scratchy.
sheer – adj. – thin, fine, diaphanous.
silky – adj. having the delicate softness of silk.
translucent – through which light passes
wispy - consisting of or resembling a wisp or wisps. wisp – a handful, bunch, or small bundle (of hay, straw, grass, etc.).
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That’s a great list of descriptive words for translucent materials – but hopefully most stories written today are not as insubstantial and diaphanous as princess-goes-to-ball.
@ Dee.. Ya you are right but words never hurt. You can always tailor them as similes or abstract notions for you craft.
Amy Dyslex