adumbration

[ ad-uhm-brey-shuhn ]

noun

1. a shadow or faint image of something:

   In the south, where the Tibetan plateau begins its gradual rise, we can just glimpse the hazy adumbration of its mountains above the undulating horizon.

2. a foreshadowing of or precursor to something:

   Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy of 1808 serves in every way as an adumbration of the Ninth Symphony.

   The essay is a fascinating adumbration of an idea that would become the author’s obsession six months later.

3. concealment or overshadowing:

   The haunting tune reflects the sad adumbration of the heroine’s emotional priorities as she rejects her prospective lover.

Word History and Origins

Origin of adumbration¹

First recorded in 1530–1540; adumbrat(e) ( def ) + -ion ( def )

Example Sentences

The New York Times called it “an unbelievably hackneyed and mawkish mish-mash of backstage plots and ‘Peyton Place’ adumbrations in which five women are involved with their assorted egotistical aspirations, love affairs and Seconal pills.”

From Los Angeles Times

I had distinct memories of my life before my father became sick, but the person I was seemed like a rose-coloured adumbration of my present self.

From The Guardian

“It’s an unbelievably hackneyed and mawkish mish-mash of backstage plots and ‘Peyton Place’ adumbrations in which five women are involved with their assorted egotistical aspirations, love affairs and Seconal pills,” he wrote.

From New York Times

On the evolutionist interpretation this is an adumbration of the actual genealogical tree or Stammbaum.

From Project Gutenberg

Here has been seen an adumbration of natural selection: he himself admits the difficulty he has in making it clear.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• advice
• announcement
• clue
• evidence
• idea
• implication
• impression
• information
• inkling
• intimation
• mention
• notion
• reference
• reminder
• scent
• sign
• suspicion
• symptom
• taste
• tinge