disappear

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English

Etymology

From Middle English disapeeren, equivalent to dis- +‎ appear. Displaced native Old English fordwīnan.

Pronunciation

Verb

disappear (third-person singular simple present disappears, present participle disappearing, simple past and past participle disappeared)

  1. (intransitive) To vanish.
    Synonyms: dematerialize, vanish
    Antonym: appear
  2. (intransitive) To go missing; to become a missing person.
    Eighteen years after Jaycee Dugard disappeared in 1991, she was found alive in the summer of 2009.
  3. (intransitive) To go away; to become lost.
    • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter VIII, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:
      I corralled the judge, and we started off across the fields […] . And thus we came by a circuitous route to Mohair, […] . My client welcomed the judge […] and they disappeared together into the Ethiopian card-room, which was filled with the assegais and exclamation point shields Mr. Cooke had had made at the sawmill at Beaverton.
    • 1927, F. E. Penny, chapter 4, in Pulling the Strings:
      A turban and loincloth soaked in blood had been found; also a staff. These properties were known to have belonged to a toddy drawer. He had disappeared.
  4. (transitive, often euphemistic) To make vanish; especially, to abduct or murder for political reasons.
    Coordinate term: suicide
    The Chinese government is well-known for disappearing particularly vocal political dissidents.
    • 1961 November 10, Joseph Heller, “Kid Sister”, in Catch-22 , New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, →OCLC, page 416:
      "Did they disappear him?"
      "I don’t know."
      "What will you do if they decide to disappear you?"
    • 2019 June 19, Lynn Neary, Patrick Jarenwattananon, quoting Joy Harjo, “Joy Harjo Becomes The First Native American U.S. Poet Laureate”, in npr‎:
      "It's such an honoring for Native people in this country, when we've been so disappeared and disregarded," Harjo says.
    • 2023 December 2, Frederick Studemann, “Civilisation is so easily lost”, in FT Weekend, Life & Arts, page 11:
      The book centres on Eilish Stack, a scientist, mother of four and wife to a teacher trade unionist who has been disappeared by the secret police.

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