seance

4 synonyms for seance, grouped by meaning and by how common each one is.

Noun — A meeting at which people attempt to make contact with the spirits of the dead, usually led by a medium and often held around a table in a darkened room.

Synonyms

Everyday swaps

Common words most readers know — safe in any writing.

sitting circle session

Rare, literary or technical

Precise, but they will stand out — check the sense before using one.

channelling session

Synonyms by Meaning

1. noun

A meeting at which people attempt to make contact with the spirits of the dead, usually led by a medium and often held around a table in a darkened room.

“They held a seance in the old house on the anniversary of his death.”

sitting circle channelling session session

2. noun formal, rare

A formal sitting or session of an organised body, such as a council or learned society.

“The academy's annual seance was recorded in its published proceedings.”

session sitting

How to use seance

The word patterns that sound natural to a native speaker.

hold a seance conduct a seance during the seance a seance table

Neutral and everyday when describing the practice; the accented spelling séance looks slightly more formal or literary.

Etymology

From French séance, 'a sitting or session', from seoir 'to sit', which goes back to Latin sedere 'to sit'.

Full origin of seance →

Frequently asked questions

What actually happens at a seance?

Participants sit together, usually in low light, while a medium tries to open communication with the dead. Contact is said to come through rapping sounds, moving objects, automatic writing, a Ouija board or the medium speaking in another voice. There is no scientific evidence that any of this contacts the deceased, and many famous seance effects have been exposed as conjuring tricks.

Is a seance the same as a Ouija board session?

Not quite. A seance is the whole gathering, which may or may not use any equipment. A Ouija board is one tool sometimes used within a seance, and people also use it casually on their own without any medium present.

How do you spell and pronounce seance?

It is spelled seance, or séance with the French acute accent, which many publishers still keep. It is pronounced SAY-ahnss, with two syllables.

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