umbratilous
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English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
From Latin umbra (“shade, shadow”).
Adjective[edit]
umbratilous (comparative more umbratilous, superlative most umbratilous)
- (rare, obsolete) Shadowy; faint; secluded; indistinct; vague; latent; indeterminate.
- 1640 [1638], Francis Bacon, translated by Gilbert Wat[t]s, Of the Advancement and Proficience of Learning, or the Partitions of Sciences, translation of De Augmentis Scientiarum (in New Latin), published 1674:
- For the handling of Final Causes the Physicks, hath intercepted, and banisht the enquiry of Physical causes; and hath given men occasion to rest satisfied in such specious, and umbratilous Causes; and not thorowly to urge and press the enquiry of real and truly Physical Causes.
- 1863 September, “Thomas de Quincey”, in The Atlantic Monthly, volume 12, page 356:
- […] and should doubtless do our best, through horrid yells and tintinnabulations, towards getting up a tremendous counter-irritation upon the earth that should tell mightily on the nerves of this umbratilous tiger in the heavens.