appearance
noun
Simple meaning
The event of coming into sight.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
uhpihruhnsSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
əˈpɪɹəns
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
The act of appearing in public view
The act of appearing or coming into sight; the act of becoming visible to the eye.
The event of coming into sight
The act of appearing in a particular place, or in society, a company, or any proceedings; a coming before the public in a particular character.
Outward or visible aspect of a person or thing
Apparent likeness; the way which something or someone appears to others.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The act of appearing in public view
Used this way, appearance is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use appearance
- “I tried to describe his appearance to the police.”noun
- “They try to keep up appearances.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
The act of beginning something new.
In reality.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Antonyms
Sense: appearing in public view
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.