Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Vanishing or likely to vanish like vapor.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Vanishing, or apt to vanish or be dissipated, like vapor; passing away; fleeting: as, the pleasures and joys of life are evanescent.
- Lessening or lessened beyond the reach of perception; impalpable; imperceptible.
- In natural history, unstable; unfixed; hence, uncertain; unreliable: applied to characters which are not fixed or uniformly present, and therefore are valueless for scientific classification.
- In entomology, tending to become obsolete in one part; fading out: as, antennal scrobes evanescent posteriorly.
- In mathematics, infinitesimal.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Liable to vanish or pass away like vapor; vanishing; fleeting.
- adjective Vanishing from notice; imperceptible.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective
Vanishing ,disappearing . - adjective
Ephemeral ,momentary ,fleeting . - adjective Barely there; almost
imperceptible .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective tending to vanish like vapor
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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These might well be termed evanescent varieties, and since they never become fixed or find their way into cultivation they are of interest only to the plant breeder.
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In part, it arises because an exotic form of light wave generated at the interface, called an "evanescent" wave, is lost in passing through the glass of a lens, with a consequent loss of information and a slight spoiling of image sharpness.
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Ridicule and derision are a kind of evanescent ostracism, a temporary exclusion from the comradeship.
Introduction to the Science of Sociology Robert Ezra Park 1926
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Conventional lenses construct an image of an object only using ordinary waves, discarding information regarding the fine, tiny details of the object that are contained in "evanescent" waves.
PhysOrg.com - latest science and technology news stories 2010
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Conventional lenses construct an image of an object only using ordinary waves, discarding information regarding the fine, tiny details of the object that are contained in "evanescent" waves.
PhysOrg.com - latest science and technology news stories 2010
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Conventional lenses construct an image of an object only using ordinary waves, discarding information regarding the fine, tiny details of the object that are contained in "evanescent" waves.
R&D Mag - News 2010
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Conventional lenses construct an image of an object only using ordinary waves, discarding information regarding the fine, tiny details of the object that are contained in "evanescent" waves.
R&D Mag - News 2010
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Mr. Francis quoted Dr. Gordon Margolin, Chief of Internal Medicine at Jewish Hospital during Dr. Patrick's residency, as finding the plaintiff's presence "evanescent," which is to say infinitesimal.
unknown title 2008
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"evanescent", in the sense of something that man cannot grasp, and that is cer - tainly an aspect of what the author is saying throughout the book.
Latest Articles 2008
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As a delicate epilogue, Mr. Brown picks up his dance's evanescent momentum "Jesus Children of America" in a solo personal appearance both brief and indelible.
Earthly Figures in the Clouds Robert Greskovic 2011
seanahan commented on the word evanescent
This seems to be Latin in contrast to the Greek ephemeral.
September 12, 2008
dewiclark29 commented on the word evanescent
ev-uh-nes-uhnt ~adjective 1. vanishing; fading away; fleeting.
2. tending to become imperceptible; scarcely perceptible.
September 22, 2008
knitandpurl commented on the word evanescent
"Adrift in a new world of often devastating change, they found meaning in the shifting light on a river at dawn, or the evanescent flash of a hummingbird's flight."
- A Summer of Hummingbirds by Christopher Benfey, p 4
October 15, 2008
knitandpurl commented on the word evanescent
"The similarity between the evanescent greetings of the Duchesse de Lambresac and those of my grandmother's friends had begun to arouse my interest by showing me how in all narrow and closed societies, be they those of the minor gentry or of the great nobility, the old manners persist, enabling us to recapture, like an archaeologist, something of the upbringing, and the ethos it reflects, that prevailed in the days of the Vicomte d'Arlincourt and Loiisa Puget."
--Sodom and Gomorrah by Marcel Proust, translated by C.K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin, revised by D.J. Enright, p 110 of the Modern Library paperback edition
February 3, 2009
DicksonBaseball commented on the word evanescent
test
July 25, 2011
DicksonBaseball commented on the word evanescent
test
July 25, 2011
kingparton commented on the word evanescent
She rubbed and curtsied, caressing the planks, making evanescent designs of herself against the darkness of the water.
Anne Bosworth Greene, "Lambs of March"
July 25, 2011
fbharjo commented on the word evanescent
fuguescent??
January 8, 2016
ruzuzu commented on the word evanescent
"In natural history, unstable; unfixed; hence, uncertain; unreliable: applied to characters which are not fixed or uniformly present, and therefore are valueless for scientific classification.
In entomology, tending to become obsolete in one part; fading out: as, antennal scrobes evanescent posteriorly."
-- Century Dictionary
September 4, 2018