gauze

noun

1. 1

   A thin fabric with a loose, open weave.

2. 2

   A similar bleached cotton fabric used as a surgical dressing.

   “I can’t wrap up any dog’s foot now. There’s some gauze in the bathroom, go get it and do it yourself.”

3. 3

   A thin woven metal or plastic mesh.

4. 4

   Mist or haze

5. 5

   Variant of wire gauzeEllipsis of wire gauze

verb

1. 1

   To apply a dressing of gauze; to cover with gauze.

   The lid [of the feeder] has a circular gauzed area that allows the syrup to permeate slowly.

   I gauzed the deep cuts and gashes.

2. 2

   To mist; to make or become gauze-like.

   The wide plain gauzed into a sea on which the hut floated lonely.

   It had come to be six o’clock; midges gauzed the air.

   Then a film of chemical vapour seems to drift around the city, fudging every edge, gauzing every vista.

   I was once foolish enough to believe knowledge would clarify, but some things are so gauzed behind layers of syntax and semantics, behind days and hours, names forgotten, salvaged and shed, that simply knowing the wound exists does nothing to reveal it.

Forms

plural

gauzes

past tense

gauzed

past participle

gauzed

present participle

gauzing

third person singular

gauzes