SEMBLANCE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does semblance mean? 

• SEMBLANCE (noun)
  The noun SEMBLANCE has 3 senses:

1. an outward or token appearance or form that is deliberately misleading

2. an erroneous mental representation

3. picture consisting of a graphic image of a person or thing

  Familiarity information: SEMBLANCE used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SEMBLANCE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

An outward or token appearance or form that is deliberately misleading

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

color; colour; gloss; semblance

Context example:

the situation soon took on a different color

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

appearance; visual aspect (outward or visible aspect of a person or thing)

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

color of law; colour of law (a mere semblance of legal right; something done with the apparent authority of law but actually in contravention of law)

simulacrum (an insubstantial or vague semblance)

face value (the apparent worth as opposed to the real worth)

guise; pretence; pretense; pretext (an artful or simulated semblance)

camouflage; disguise (an outward semblance that misrepresents the true nature of something)

verisimilitude (the appearance of truth; the quality of seeming to be true)

Sense 2

Meaning:

An erroneous mental representation

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

illusion; semblance

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

appearance (a mental representation)

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

apparition; fantasm; phantasm; phantasma; phantom; shadow (something existing in perception only)

irradiation (the apparent enlargement of a bright object when viewed against a dark background)

phantom limb (the illusion that a limb still exists after it has been amputated)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Picture consisting of a graphic image of a person or thing

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

likeness; semblance

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

icon; ikon; image; picture (a visual representation (of an object or scene or person or abstraction) produced on a surface)

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

Identikit; Identikit picture (a likeness of a person's face constructed from descriptions given to police; uses a set of transparencies of various facial features that can be combined to build up a picture of the person sought)

portrait; portrayal (any likeness of a person, in any medium)

 Context examples 

What manner of man is this, or what manner of creature is it in the semblance of man?

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

What I am striving to express is this strength itself, more as a thing apart from his physical semblance.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

"Good-by, I go now, much hurry," the Indian said, and without semblance of haste, with great deliberation stepping clear of a red pool on the floor, he opened the door and went out.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

His stout mittens temporarily protected his hands, and he scooped live coals into the air in all directions, until the campfire took on the semblance of a volcano.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

I have observed that when I wore the semblance of Edward Hyde, none could come near to me at first without a visible misgiving of the flesh.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

She was the living spirit of love to soften and attract; I might have become sullen in my study, rough through the ardour of my nature, but that she was there to subdue me to a semblance of her own gentleness.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

As it was, she instantly submitted, and with all the semblance of seeing nothing beyond; and Anne, eager to escape farther notice, was impatient to know why Mrs Smith should have fancied she was to marry Mr Elliot; where she could have received the idea, or from whom she could have heard it.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

My aunt informed me how he incessantly occupied himself in copying everything he could lay his hands on, and kept King Charles the First at a respectful distance by that semblance of employment; how it was one of the main joys and rewards of her life that he was free and happy, instead of pining in monotonous restraint; and how (as a novel general conclusion) nobody but she could ever fully know what he was.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

He was dressed in clothes far too large for him, clothes of the doctor’s bigness; the cords of his face still moved with a semblance of life, but life was quite gone; and by the crushed phial in the hand and the strong smell of kernels that hung upon the air, Utterson knew that he was looking on the body of a self-destroyer.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)