APPARITION

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does apparition mean? 

• APPARITION (noun)
  The noun APPARITION has 4 senses:

1. a ghostly appearing figure

2. the appearance of a ghostlike figure

3. something existing in perception only

4. an act of appearing or becoming visible unexpectedly

  Familiarity information: APPARITION used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• APPARITION (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A ghostly appearing figure

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

apparition; fantasm; phantasm; phantasma; phantom; specter; spectre

Context example:

we were unprepared for the apparition that confronted us

Hypernyms ("apparition" is a kind of...):

disembodied spirit; spirit (any incorporeal supernatural being that can become visible (or audible) to human beings)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "apparition"):

Flying Dutchman (the captain of a phantom ship (the Flying Dutchman) who was condemned to sail against the wind until Judgment Day)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The appearance of a ghostlike figure

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural events

Context example:

I was recalled to the present by the apparition of a frightening specter

Hypernyms ("apparition" is a kind of...):

appearance (the event of coming into sight)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Something existing in perception only

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

apparition; fantasm; phantasm; phantasma; phantom; shadow

Context example:

a ghostly apparition at midnight

Hypernyms ("apparition" is a kind of...):

illusion; semblance (an erroneous mental representation)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "apparition"):

flying saucer; UFO; unidentified flying object (an (apparently) flying object whose nature is unknown; especially those considered to have extraterrestrial origins)

Flying Dutchman (a phantom ship that is said to appear in storms near the Cape of Good Hope)

ghost; shade; specter; spectre; spook; wraith (a mental representation of some haunting experience)

Sense 4

Meaning:

An act of appearing or becoming visible unexpectedly

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Context example:

natives were amazed at the apparition of this white stranger

Hypernyms ("apparition" is a kind of...):

appearance (the act of appearing in public view)

Derivation:

appear (come into sight or view)

appear (come into being or existence, or appear on the scene)

 Context examples 

The apparition was very like his present self, and, as he regarded it, he noted the student-lamp by which it was illuminated, and the book over which it pored.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

The shade of a young butcher rises, like the apparition of an armed head in Macbeth.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

“Which of you is Holmes?” asked this apparition.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

All evening, though I tried to think of other things, my mind would still turn to the apparition at the window and the rudeness of the woman.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

We were, as we believed, many hundred miles from any land; but this apparition seemed to denote that it was not, in reality, so distant as we had supposed.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

But the terror of this new apparition brought me to a stand.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

She's an excitable, nervous person: she construed her dream into an apparition, or something of that sort, no doubt; and has taken a fit with fright.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Another chant from Hagar produced another apparition, not a lovely one, for with a bang an ugly black imp appeared and, having croaked a reply, tossed a dark bottle at Hugo and disappeared with a mocking laugh.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Next, he entered into the apparition, trimmed the student-lamp, and himself went on reading "The Science of AEsthetics."

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

I do not ever remember to have trembled at a tale of superstition or to have feared the apparition of a spirit.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)