unsubstantial
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]From un- + substantial.
Adjective
[edit]unsubstantial (comparative more unsubstantial, superlative most unsubstantial)
- (archaic) Insubstantial.
- Synonyms: see Thesaurus:insubstantial
- 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:
- 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!
- 1751, [Tobias] Smollett, chapter 89, in The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle […], volume III, London: Harrison and Co., […], →OCLC:
- 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.
- 1859, Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC:
- They shook hands upon it, and Sydney turned away. Within a minute afterward he was, to all outward appearance, as unsubstantial as ever.
- 1968, Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, 2nd edition, London: Fontana Press, published 1993, page 8:
- Psychoanalysis, the modern science of reading dreams, has taught us to take heed of these unsubstantial images.