adumbration

noun

1. (uncountable)The state of being in shadow or shade; (countable) a shadow.

   “If it be true, that there is a Firſt Being who has drawn or created all the reſt from nothing, man is truly his image; [...]. But an image, is but an image ſtill, and can be but an adumbration or ſhadow of the true perfect Being.”

   “[O]ne of these, [...] seems to have felt some irritation at the obscurity of certain terms not well understood, being in the Latin, or the Greek language, or derived from thence; so that not being able to get at the root, he could not comprehend the stem of the tree; nor enjoy the adumbration of the branches and foliage.”

   “And grief from my ma's passing was still with me; such things, like shadows, never leave; they just seem to fade for a time, only to return later. So to the sea I would go, and to New Providence, in a vain attempt to outdistance my own adumbration.”

2. (countable)A faint sketch; a brief representation, an outline.

   “There is another Difference of Sounds, which wee call Exteriour, and Interiour. [...] Wee ſhall therefore enumerate them, rather than preciſely diſtinguiſh them; Though (to make ſome Adumbration of that wee meane) the Interiour is rather an Impulſion or Contuſion of the Aire, than an Eliſion or Section of the ſame.”

   “For almoſt in all ſenſible Creatures, eſpecially thoſe of the more perfect kind, a certain Image or weak Adumbration of ſomething like Reaſon appears, yet we find no Creatures below Mankind any thing like Religion, or Veneration of a Deity: [...]”

   “[V]ague and unsatisfactory would all these evidences appear, if they had not been illustrated and confirmed by that narrative, of which all other records are but faint adumbrations.”

   “[Zechariah] Chafee, in his landmark book Freedom of Speech, provided more than an adumbration of civil liberties for future legal scholars—he helped to define the issues and parameters of serious debate on the subject.”

3. (countable, rare, specifically, uncountable)A faint sketch; a brief representation, an outline.

   “ADUMBRATION, [in Heraldry] an abſolute taking avvay of the Charge or Thing born, ſo that nothing of it remains but the bare Proportion of the out Lines.”

   “The mysterious adumbration or shadowing which occurs in some of the Hamilton coats, is also interesting, because rare, though it hardly bears out the statement of some writers that it was adopted by families who, having lost their possessions, and consequently being unable to maintain their dignity, chose rather to bear their hereditary arms adumbrated than abandon them altogether.”

4. (countable, figuratively, uncountable)A rough or symbolic representation; a vague indication of what is to come, a foreshadowing.

   “[W]here there is an obſcurity too deep for our Reaſon, 'tis good to ſit down with a deſcription, periphraſis, or adumbration; for by acquainting our reaſon how unable it is to diſplay the viſible and obvious effects of nature, it becomes more humble and ſubmiſſive unto the ſubtilties of faith: [...]”

   “Now, no Prieſt was ſuffered to eat the Fleſh, or drink the Blood, of this Sacrifice, becauſe it was a myſtical Adumbration of a ſpiritual Feaſt above, [...]”

   “Human nature soon forgets the infinite grace and power of the Christian redemption, and loses herself amidst the figures and adumbrations of the law, the enactments of the Jewish polity, the directions and rules laid down for the early churches.”

   “The exaggeration with darkness imparted to the glooms of this region impressed Henchard more than he had expected. The lugubrious harmony of the spot with his domestic situation was too perfect for him, impatient of effects, scenes, and adumbrations.”

   “The merest adumbration of an apology on Baron Veen's part would clinch the matter with a token of gracious finality.”

5. (countable, specifically)The form of an object as seen by an observer.

   “Of necessity a physical thing can be given only "one-sidedly;" and that signifies, not just incompletely or imperfectly in some sense or other, but precisely what presentation by adumbrations prescribes.”

   “Just as the intentional horizon of the spatial object is made up of those adumbrations which would be implied were I to walk around the object and view it from different points of view, so the intentional horizon of the temporal object is made up of retentions and protensions.”

   “Obviously, he [Edmund Husserl] assumes that adumbrations exist in consciousness and that they are real parts of the stream of conscious experiences. Otherwise he should have inferred from the thought-experiment of the destruction of the world that in this case consciousness would exist together with a chaotic stream of adumbrations.”