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unsubstantial. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
unsubstantial, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
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English
Etymology
From un- + substantial.
Adjective
unsubstantial (comparative more unsubstantial, superlative most unsubstantial)
- (archaic) Insubstantial.
- Synonyms: see Thesaurus:insubstantial
1749, , The Regicide: Or, James the First, of Scotland. A Tragedy. , London: 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, 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.
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.