different between unsubstantial vs cobweb

English

Etymology

From un- +? substantial.

Adjective

unsubstantial (comparative more unsubstantial, superlative most unsubstantial)

1. (now rare) Insubstantial.
   • 1751, Tobias Smollett, The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, vol. III, ch. 89:

     “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.”

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:insubstantial

English

Etymology

From Middle English copweb, coppeweb, equivalent to cop (“spider”) +? web. Compare Middle Dutch kopwebbe, German Low German Kobbenwebbe (Westphalian).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?k?bw?b/
• Hyphenation: cob?web

Noun

cobweb (plural cobwebs)

1. A spiderweb, or the remains of one, especially an asymmetrical one that is woven with an irregular pattern of threads.
   • 1865, Henry David Thoreau, Cape Cod, Chapter X. "Provincetown", page 200.

     […] there was stretched across his gateway a circular cobweb of the largest kind and quite entire. This looked so ominous that I actually turned aside and went in the back way.
2. One of its filaments; gossamer.
3. (figuratively) Something thin and unsubstantial, or flimsy and worthless; valueless remainder.
   • c. 1579, Philip Sidney, The Defense of Poesy

     The dust and cobwebs of that uncivil age.
4. An intricate plot to catch the unwary.

   • Entangled in the cobwebs of the schools.

5. (Internet slang, rare) A web page that either has not been updated for a long time, or that is rarely visited.
6. The European spotted flycatcher, Muscicapa striata.
7. (informal, usually in the plural) fuzzy inexact memories.
   • 2008 Burlan Eugene Ellison The Ebony Coffin: A Jim Kirkwood Novel page 98

     I washed my face, trying to get the cobwebs of hard sex and an alcohol-induced sleep out of my head

   • 2012 Stanley M. Bierman Napoleon's Penis: Plus Other Engaging and Outrageous Tales page 16

     Veyz mir, meaning something like “Oh . . . my!,” was a Yiddish expression that I had not employed for a long, long time. Yet in the cobwebs of my memory, that expression was still lurking inside. How interesting!

Hypernyms

• web

Derived terms

Translations