DictionaryAI

disappear

verb
Saydis-uh-PEER/dɪsəˈpɪɹ/UK/dɪsəˈpɪə/

Formsdisappears, disappearing, disappeared

4 meanings of disappear

Practice

  1. 1
    verbintransitive
    To stop being visible; to pass out of sight.

    The hikers watched the trail disappear under fresh snow.

    Her smile disappeared the moment she heard the news.

    Similarvanish, dematerialize

    Oppositeappear

    Note

    Built in English rather than inherited: Middle English disapeeren is simply dis- added to appear, and it pushed out the native Old English fordwīnan. That makes appear its exact opposite, a pairing still felt today. Vanish is the nearest synonym, while dematerialize stresses a loss of physical substance. Here nobody causes the vanishing, unlike the political, transitive use.

  2. 2
    verbintransitive
    To go away or become lost, so that something is no longer present or available.

    Funds from the account disappear without explanation each month.

    Several species disappeared from the region after the river dried up.

    Similarvanish, evaporate, fade, dissipate

    Oppositeappear, emerge, materialize

    Note

    Here nothing mysterious need happen: someone simply leaves, usually into somewhere. The American novelist Winston Churchill's The Celebrity (1897) has two men who "disappeared together into the Ethiopian card-room," and the verb pairs naturally with into and a destination. In F. E. Penny's Pulling the Strings the same plain words carry dread, with "He had disappeared" following the discovery of bloodied clothes. Context decides whether the leaving is casual or sinister.

  3. 3
    verbintransitive
    To go missing; to become a missing person whose whereabouts are unknown.

    The journalist disappeared after publishing the report.

    Hundreds of people disappear each year without a trace.

    Similarvanish

    Oppositereappear, resurface, return

  4. 4
    verbeuphemistictransitive
    To make someone vanish; especially, to abduct or kill a person for political reasons.

    The dictatorship disappeared thousands of dissidents over the decade.

    Secret police can disappear a critic without any public record.

    Similarabduct, eliminate, kidnap, liquidate

    Note

    The ordinary 'vanish' verb turned transitive, and the euphemism lies in what it leaves out: abduction, detention or killing by agents who then hide the victim's fate. Joseph Heller's Catch-22 (1961) already has "Did they disappear him?" It is often passive (those who were disappeared at Chile's Colonia Dignidad), and it can stretch to whole peoples erased from view, as when Joy Harjo says Native people have been "so disappeared and disregarded."

Practice

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Origin

From Middle English 'disapeeren', formed from the prefix 'dis-' plus 'appear'. It displaced the native Old English word 'fordwīnan'.