Both Uses of
adumbrate
in
The Magic Mountain
- Anatomy presented our researcher with human limbs skinned and prepared for study; it showed him both the surface and the deeper structure of muscles, tendons, and ligaments, those of the thigh, the foot, and especially the arm, the upper and lower arm; it taught him the Latin names that medicine—that adumbration of the humanist spirit—had nobly and chivalrously supplied to distinguish them; and it allowed him to penetrate to the skeleton, an illustration of which offered him new perspectives, revealing the unity of all things human, the interconnection of all disciplines.†
Chpt 5.7
- But that is only an adumbration of one great, urgent concern, which in fullest sympathy I shall now call by its name: life's problem child, man himself, his true state and condition.†
Chpt 6.7 *
Definitions:
-
(1)
(adumbrate) describe or reveal incompletely -- as when outlining major points, or when sharing information guardedly
-
(2)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) meaning too rare to warrant focus:
Less commonly, adumbrate can mean to foreshadow, or obscure (make harder to see or understand).