Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A ghostly figure; a specter.
- noun A sudden or unusual sight.
- noun The act of appearing; appearance.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To cause to to appear in phantom form.
- noun The act of appearing or coming into sight; appearance; the state of being visible; visibility.
- noun That which appears or becomes visible; an appearance, especially of a remarkable or phenomenal kind.
- noun Specifically A ghostly appearance; a specter or phantom: now the usual sense of the word.
- noun In astronomy, the first appearance of a star or other luminary after having been obscured: opposed to occultation.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun The act of becoming visible; appearance; visibility.
- noun The thing appearing; a visible object; a form.
- noun An unexpected, wonderful, or preternatural appearance; a ghost; a specter; a phantom.
- noun (Astron.) The first appearance of a star or other luminary after having been invisible or obscured; -- opposed to
occultation . - noun See under
Circle .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun An act of becoming visible; appearance; visibility.
- noun The thing appearing; a visible object; a form.
- noun An unexpected, wonderful, or
preternatural appearance; especially something such as aghost orphantom . - noun astronomy The first
appearance of a star or other luminary after having been invisible or obscured;—opposed tooccultation .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a ghostly appearing figure
- noun something existing in perception only
- noun an act of appearing or becoming visible unexpectedly
- noun the appearance of a ghostlike figure
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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At other moments in the narrative, the haunting of the apparition is achieved solely through the powers of the voice — en route to the Villa Altieri, for example, a voice entirely lacking in any visually identifiable origin emanates as if from nowhere, at once betraying the uncanny presence of Vivaldi's ghostly companion as well as maintaining his invisibility:
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These aren't pluralizations, which should be obvious from the examples. (e.g. the plural of apparition is apparitions.)
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These aren't pluralizations, which should be obvious from the examples. (e.g. the plural of apparition is apparitions.)
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The visual aspect is not all of it—hence the misleading term apparition.
Experiencing the Next World Now Michael Grosso 2004
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The visual aspect is not all of it—hence the misleading term apparition.
Experiencing the Next World Now Michael Grosso 2004
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The visual aspect is not all of it—hence the misleading term apparition.
Experiencing the Next World Now Michael Grosso 2004
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This strange apparition is no sooner left behind than two or three more, some smaller, some larger, come into sight; and so on all the way to Cairo.
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And another thing troubles me -- the apparition is English.
The American Claimant Mark Twain 1872
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I used the word apparition because of the ghost-like visage that such a reflection creates.
Superhero Nation: how to write superhero novels and comic books » Frank Murdock’s Review Forum 2009
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It turns out she's read "The Anatomy of Ghosts," a tract Holdsworth wrote to debunk the claims of spiritualism, and she hopes he can convince her anxious son that the apparition was a delusion.
Andrew Taylor's 'Anatomy of Ghosts': Strange sightings in 18th-century England Wendy Smith 2011
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