gossamer ˈgä-sə-mər , ˈgäz-mər , ˈgä-zə- noun and adjective
noun: gauze fabric with an extremely fine texture
noun: filaments from a web that was spun by a spider
adjective: characterized by unusual lightness and delicacy
adjective: so thin as to transmit light
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The word gossamer has appeared in 30 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year, including on Nov. 26 in “Judy Collins Has a Time Machine” by Amanda Hess:
Collins’s latest album, “Winter Stories,” out Nov. 29, is a collaboration with the Norwegian singer Jonas Fjeld and the bluegrass band Chatham County Line. It’s a hygge folk collection, perfect for curling up with three cats, but it also holds unexpected emotional power. On it Collins sings Mitchell’s “The River,” and her own “Mountain Girl,” and “Highwayman,” Jimmy Webb’s song about a man who is reincarnated as a thief, a sailor, a dam builder and a starship captain, which was later covered by Glen Campbell and then the country supergroup the Highwaymen. She had contemplated recording it for many years.
“I never really had the nerve,” she said. The song seemed to be owned by “the guys,” as she put it. “And then I thought, what the heck?” Collins’s version is unlike any other. In translating the masculine country anthem into her gossamer voice, she has dismantled and rebuilt the song into a testament to female resilience. After hearing it, the recordings by the other versions sound somehow muted. It’s Judy Collins’s song now.
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