disappear

The word “disappear” means to vanish from sight; to stop being visible. In plain terms, to go out of sight or go missing — sometimes used, chillingly, as a transitive verb for making someone vanish by force.

“Disappear” is pronounced dih-suh-PEER (/dɪsəˈpɪɹ/ in IPA).

Here is “disappear” used in a sentence: “The sun disappeared behind the clouds.”

“Disappear” is a verb.

The word “disappear” comes from Middle English. From Middle English disapeeren, built from dis- + appear.

“Disappear” is a fairly common word in modern English, usually learned at around the A2 level.

“Disappear” has 3 distinct senses listed in this dictionary. The most common is: to vanish from sight; to stop being visible.

Both mean to stop being visible, but vanish suggests a sudden, complete, sometimes mysterious departure, while disappear is the neutral, all-purpose word. A ship can slowly disappear over the horizon, but a magician's assistant vanishes. In most sentences the two are interchangeable, with vanish adding a touch of drama.

In standard grammar disappear is intransitive: things disappear, you do not disappear them. However, an informal transitive use exists, meaning to make a person vanish, especially by abducting or killing them for political reasons ("dissidents were disappeared"). This grim usage is well established in reporting on political repression.

Disappear has one s and two p's. It is formed from the prefix dis- added to appear, so the only doubled letters are the two p's that appear already contains. The frequent misspellings "dissapear" and "disapear" both break that dis + appear pattern.

When a person disappears, the word stresses the sudden, unexplained nature of the event; when a person goes missing, the phrase stresses their ongoing status as not yet found. News reports often use both: someone disappeared on a given date and has been missing since. For objects, disappear is usual, and "go missing" is especially common in British English.