evanesce

[ ev-uh-nes, ev-uh-nes ]

verb (used without object)

, ev·a·nesced, ev·a·nesc·ing.

1. to disappear gradually; vanish; fade away.

evanesce

/ ˌɛvəˈnɛs /

verb

1. intr (of smoke, mist, etc) to fade gradually from sight; vanish

Other Words From

• eva·nesci·ble adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of evanesce¹

First recorded in 1815–25; from Latin ēvānēscere “to disappear, vanish”; vanish

Word History and Origins

Origin of evanesce¹

C19: from Latin ēvānēscere to disappear; see vanish

Example Sentences

While former Gov. Mario M. Cuomo famously predicted that the Westway controversy, as feverish as it was, would eventually evanesce “like a walnut in the batter of eternity,” each of Mr. Butzel’s successful legal challenges to preserve the Hudson River would reverberate beyond current events.

From New York Times

Not for these reveling lovers the swelling strings of Henry Mancini, who scored the film; in the cocktail-mixing song “Evanesce,” Guettel gives them bright, fast music, frenetic and danceable — and when they do a bit of soft-shoe in salt spilled on the floor, there’s a playful heedlessness to their sandpaper percussion.

From New York Times

These feature watery pools of color that seem to evanesce into nothing, topped by the hard geometries of Gray’s rug patterns, which are rendered in hand-stitched embroidery.

From Los Angeles Times

His later “wedge” sculptures, slender prisms of color that can reach heights of 8 feet, seemed to evanesce into transparent nothingness at the top.

From Los Angeles Times

In the handful of works by Vuillard, both the abstract patterning and the absence of modeling cause the borders between the picture’s separate elements to evanesce.

From Washington Post