diaphanous: [17] Semantically, diaphanous is the ancestor of modern English see-through. It comes, via medieval Latin diaphanus, from Greek diaphanés, a compound adjective formed from dia- ‘through’ and the verb phaínein ‘show’. Originally in English it meant simply ‘transparent’, without its present-day connotations of delicacy: ‘Aristotle called light a quality inherent, or cleaving to a Diaphanous body’, Walter Raleigh, History of the World 1614.
diaphanous (adj.)
1610s, from Medieval Latin diaphanus, from Greek diaphanes "transparent," from dia- "through" (see dia-) + phainesthai, middle voice form (subject acting on itself) of phainein "to show" (see phantasm).