gone off the face of the earth
- idiom
- Informal
:
desaparecer por completo
- Where has he gone off the face of the earth?
Examples
-
Since moving abroad, she has gone off the face of the earth as far as her old friends are concerned.
-
Some rare species seem to have gone off the face of the earth due to habitat loss.
-
After the last email, it was as if he had gone off the face of the earth.
-
It feels like my favorite restaurant has gone off the face of the earth!
-
After the scandal, the politician seemed to have gone off the face of the earth, with no news about him for weeks.
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When she moved away, it felt like she had gone off the face of the earth, as I couldn't contact her at all.
-
He used to be active on social media, but now he has gone off the face of the earth and nobody knows where he is.
Synonyms
∞
1.0
To stop being seen or to no longer be there
463
1.0
To stop being seen or felt
421
3.0
Disappear suddenly and completely for no clear reason
8
4.4
To vanish suddenly with no trace
1
8.1
Disappear completely so no one knows what happened and no sign is left
1
7.5
To stop being seen or heard from by others
1
4.4
No longer present or existing
Antonyms
How Present
Surface Forms
Morphology
gone + off + the + face + of + the + Earth
The constituents ('gone', 'off', 'face', 'Earth') give a clear spatial image of someone or something being removed from the surface of the world, so learners will get a strong clue that it means disappearing; however the fixed phrase 'off the face of the earth' is idiomatic and the metaphorical use may not be fully predictable without exposure. Because the meaning is inferable to some extent but relies on a conventionalized metaphor (which many languages also use), this is best classified as semi-transparent.
Etymology
Gone off the face of the earth creates a simple image of someone stepping off the visible face of the earth and disappearing from sight. That's why it means 'to disappear completely' with no trace.