vanish

Aphetic for obsolete evanish, from Middle English, borrowed from Old French esvanir, esvaniss- (modern French évanouir), from Vulgar Latin *exvanire (“to vanish, disappear, to fade out”), from Latin evanescere, from vanus (“empty”).

• enPR: văn'ĭsh, IPA^(key): /ˈvænɪʃ/
• Rhymes: -ænɪʃ
• Hyphenation: van‧ish

vanish (third-person singular simple present vanishes, present participle vanishing, simple past and past participle vanished)

1. To become invisible or to move out of view unnoticed.
   • 1843 December 19, Charles Dickens, “Stave Three. The Second of the Three Spirits.”, in A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas, London: Chapman & Hall, […], OCLC 55746801, pages 79–80:

     Holly, mistletoe, red berries, ivy, turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, meat, pigs, sausages, oysters, pies, puddings, fruit, and punch, all vanished instantly.

   • 1920, Mary Roberts Rinehart; Avery Hopwood, chapter I, in The Bat: A Novel from the Play (Dell Book; 241), New York, N.Y.: Dell Publishing Company, OCLC 20230794, page 01:

     The Bat—they called him the Bat. Like a bat he chose the night hours for his work of rapine; like a bat he struck and vanished, pouncingly, noiselessly; like a bat he never showed himself to the face of the day.

2. (mathematics) To become equal to zero.

   The function ${\displaystyle f(x)=x^{2}}$ vanishes at ${\displaystyle x=0}$ .

• disappear

• vanishing point
• vanishing spray

• vain

vanish (plural vanishes)

1. (phonetics) The brief terminal part of a vowel or vocal element, differing more or less in quality from the main part.

   a as in ale ordinarily ends with a vanish of i as in ill.

   o as in old ordinarily ends with a vanish of oo as in foot.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Rush to this entry?)

2. A magic trick in which something seems to disappear.

   The French drop is a well-known vanish involving sleight of hand.

• glide

• shavin'