English Online Dictionary. What means appearance? What does appearance mean?
English
Alternative forms
- appearaunce (obsolete)
Etymology
Borrowed from Middle French apparence, from Latin apparentia, from appareo. Morphologically appear + -ance. Doublet of apparence and apparency. Displaced native Old English hīew (“the way something looks or seems”) and ætīewednes (“act of appearing or coming into view”).
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /əˈpɪə.ɹəns/
- (General American) IPA(key): /əˈpiɹ.əns/, enPR: ə-pîrʹəns
- Hyphenation: ap‧pear‧ance
Noun
appearance (countable and uncountable, plural appearances)
- The act of appearing or coming into sight; the act of becoming visible to the eye.
- A thing seen; a phenomenon; an apparition.
- The way something looks; personal presence
- Synonyms: aspect, mien
- Apparent likeness; the way which something or someone appears to others.
- 2003, Roy Porter, Flesh in the Age of Reason, Ch.9, at p.150, 151:
- 'Never be taken in by false appearancesʻ was Swift's habitual satirical message. 'In most Corporeal Beings, which have fallen under my Cognizance, the Outside hath been infinitely preferable to the In,' he elsewhere proclaimed. [...] The sordid reality beneath the mask haunted him: was all civilisation just dirt and derangement at heart? […] Evidently man was not the homo rationalis he pretended to be but rather, at best, homo rationis capax ─ a creature capable of rationality, though by implication falling short.
- (philosophy, theology) That which is not substance, essence, hypostasis; the outward reality as opposed to the underlying reality
- The act of appearing in a particular place, or in society, a company, or any proceedings; a coming before the public in a particular character.
- (law) An instance of someone coming into a court of law to be part of a trial, lawsuit or other proceeding, either in person or represented by an attorney or such like; a court appearance
- (medicine) Chiefly used by nurses: the act of defecation by a patient.
Synonyms
- (act of coming into sight): arrival, manifestation,
- (a thing seen): spectacle, apparition, phenomenon, presence
- (aspect of a person): aspect, air, figure, look, manner, mien
- (outward show): semblance, show, pretense, façade or facade
- (act of appearing in public): debut
Antonyms
- non-appearance, nonappearance
Derived terms
Related terms
Translations
References
- “appearance”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.