disappear

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   get lost, as without warning or explanation

   They disappeared without a trace.

2. 2
   verb

   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. 3
   verb

   To go away; to become lost.

   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.

4. 4
   verb

   To make vanish; especially, to abduct or murder for political reasons.

   The Chinese government is well-known for disappearing particularly vocal political dissidents.

5. 5
   verb

   become less intense and fade away gradually

6. 6
   verb

   cease to exist

7. 7
   verb

   become invisible or unnoticeable

8. 8
   verb

   To vanish.

Etymology

From Middle English disapeeren, equivalent to dis- + appear. Displaced native Old English fordwīnan. Displaced native Old English cwincan, whose causative persists as quench (“put out (fire)”).