vanish

Formsvanishes, vanishing, vanished

Pluralvanishes

1. 1
   verbintransitive

   To pass out of sight or cease to be visible, often suddenly or without being noticed.

   The hikers watched the path vanish beneath the drifting snow.

   By dawn the morning mist had vanished from the valley.

   Similardisappear, fade, evaporate, dissipate, dissolve

   Oppositeappear, emerge, materialize

   Note

   Behind the word is emptiness. It is a clipped form of the old verb evanish, which came through Old French from Latin evanescere, built on vanus, "empty". Evanesce is its doublet, the same Latin word arriving by another route. In this use the verb takes no object: things simply vanish, as when Dickens has a whole feast of turkeys, pies and punch "vanished instantly". By contrast, the abduction sense makes a person the object.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A magic trick in which an object appears to disappear from view.

   The performer's vanish fooled even the magicians in the front row.

   A well-timed vanish depends on misdirecting the audience's attention.

   Oppositeproduction

   Note

   Conjurors' shorthand makes the verb a countable noun naming a whole category of effect. Particular methods count as instances of it: the French drop, for instance, is a well-known vanish done by sleight of hand. In the magician's classification it sits beside productions and transformations among the basic kinds of illusion.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   An act of disappearing; a sudden departure from sight.

   His overnight vanish from public life sparked endless rumors.

   Reporters speculated for weeks about the senator's sudden vanish.

   Similardisappearance, departure, exit

   Oppositeappearance, reappearance, return

4. 4
   verbtransitive

   To cause someone to disappear, especially by abducting or secretly removing them.

   The secret police vanished journalists who exposed corruption.

   They threatened to vanish him if he testified.

   Similardisappear, abduct, kidnap

   Note

   The transitive use turns an innocent verb sinister: a person becomes the object, and someone else does the vanishing. It sits most naturally in the passive, as in one of his friends "was vanished" and never seen again. Writers often set it off in scare quotes, as John Varley does, a sign that it still reads as a stretched usage. It belongs to accounts of abduction and state violence.

5. 5
   verbintransitive

   Of a mathematical quantity or function, to become equal to zero.

   The function vanishes at the origin and grows steadily on either side.

   Substitute zero for the variable and the second term will vanish completely.

   Similardisappear

   Note

   Mathematicians borrow the everyday verb with no hint of anything going out of sight. Here a value simply reaches zero. The usual construction names where that happens: f(x) = x² vanishes at x = 0. A function may vanish at a single point or throughout a whole region, and the phrase "vanishes at" followed by the point is the form to reach for.

6. 6
   nouncountable

   The brief final portion of a vowel or vocal sound, differing somewhat in quality from its main part.

   Phonetics teachers point out the vanish at the close of gliding vowels like the one in 'high.'

   A clear vanish helps distinguish certain vowel glides.

   Note

   Phoneticians use this word for the glide a vowel slides into as it closes. The a of ale ordinarily ends with a vanish of the i in ill, and the o of old with one of the oo in foot. James Rush, in The Philosophy of the Human Voice (1827), sets the vanish against the radical, the opening part of the sound.

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