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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

appearance.

The act of appearing or coming into sight; the act of becoming visible to the eye.

10 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/əˈpɪə.ɹəns/Received-Pronunciation/əˈpiɹ.əns/General-American
  1. The act of appearing or coming into sight; the act of becoming visible to the eye.

    countable · uncountable
    His sudden appearance surprised me.
  2. A thing seen; a phenomenon; an apparition.

    countable · uncountable
    There was a strange appearance in the sky.
  3. The way something looks; personal presence

    countable · uncountable
  4. Apparent likeness; the way which something or someone appears to others.

    countable · uncountable
    Some people say I'm shallow because I care so much about my appearance.
  5. That which is not substance, essence, hypostasis; the outward reality as opposed to the underlying reality

    countable · uncountable
    Catholicism teaches that the Eucharist, while remaining under the physical appearance of bread and wine, becomes really and truly the body and the blood of Christ.
  6. 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.

    countable · uncountable
    A person makes his appearance as an historian, an artist, or an orator.
    David Beckham's first appearance with the LA Galaxy at Giants Stadium against the New York Red Bulls last night drew a crowd of 66237.
  7. 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

    countable · uncountable
  8. Chiefly used by nurses: the act of defecation by a patient.

    countable · uncountable
    The patient had a small bowel obstruction and there was no appearance until after the obstruction resolved.
Where this word comes from

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”).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.