{"id":11652,"date":"2015-09-04T17:04:02","date_gmt":"2015-09-04T16:04:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/blog\/?p=11652"},"modified":"2015-09-04T17:04:02","modified_gmt":"2015-09-04T16:04:02","slug":"adumbrations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=11652","title":{"rendered":"Adumbrations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I came across a new word yesterday &#8211; <strong>adumbrations<\/strong> &#8211; which I had to look up in a dictionary as I couldn&#8217;t work out its meaning from the context:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Framed in the archway formed by the far end of the vaulted roof were the fantastical forms of five great gasometers, the supporting superstructures of which seemed in their adumbrations to be tangled impossibly with each other, like the hoops of an illusionist&#8217;s conjuring trick.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>From <em>The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul<\/em>, by Douglas Adams.<\/p>\n<p>According to the <a href=\"http:\/\/dictionary.reverso.net\/english-definition\/adumbration\">Reverso<\/a> dictionary, adumbration means<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>1. delineation, draft, indication, outline, rough, silhouette, sketch, suggestion <\/p>\n<p>2. augury, forecast, foreshadowing, foretelling, omen, portent, prediction, prefiguration, prefigurement, presage, prognostication, prophecy, sign  <\/p>\n<p>3. bedimming, cloud, darkening, darkness, eclipse, eclipsing, obfuscation, obscuring, overshadowing, shadow<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>A related word is adumbrate, which means &#8220;to outline; give a faint indication of; to foreshadow; to overshadow; obscure.<\/p>\n<p>It comes from the Latin word <em>adumbratus<\/em> (represented only in outline), from <em>adumbrare<\/em> (to cast a shadow on), from <em>umbra<\/em> (shadow) &#8211; obvious really!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I came across a new word yesterday &#8211; adumbrations &#8211; which I had to look up in a dictionary as I couldn&#8217;t work out its meaning from the context: Framed in the archway formed by the far end of the vaulted roof were the fantastical forms of five great gasometers, the supporting superstructures of which [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104,107,10,15,78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english","category-etymology","category-language","category-latin","category-words-and-phrases"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11652\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}