Extremely light, delicate, and filmy
Early morning, a spiderweb catches the light—impossibly thin, almost invisible, yet strong enough to trap insects. This is gossamer: something extremely light, delicate, and filmy.
The word originally meant the fine threads spiders spin on autumn mornings. Now it describes anything with that same fragile, barely-there quality.
Visual examples of delicate, filmy lightness
Test your understanding of gossamer in context
"Their gossamer friendship faded after graduation." This suggests the friendship was: