evanescence
1
9.6
- noun
- /ˌɛvəˈnɛsəns/
- Literature
:
evanescencia
- Artists often capture the evanescence of a moment in their work, highlighting the beauty of things that fade away.
Examples
-
The frame narrator, bless his soul, sees and hears only its evanescence.
Fiction book (1997) -
That omnipresent fear goes together with the intense, bittersweet awareness of all forms of evanescence.
Academic text (1993) -
Now, as soon as we start talking about things like the dominant, we are also aware of the evanescence of dominance.
-
But in showing its evanescence, experience had made Jesse more certain that the possibility of romance was the final stay against confusion.
Fiction book (1999) -
Poetry took in more and more of what was already there, instead of leaving it out in order to remain uncontaminated by evanescence.
Academic text (2011) -
The trouble with the line was exactly its fragility, its slender hold on existence, its inherent evanescence, even if it gave the impression of being eternal.
Fiction book (1994) -
Then, after I had opened and dealt with my mail, I found myself extending my thoughts to the ultimate fragility of all human experience, to the icy privacy and evanescence of every individual identity.
Fiction book (1997) -
When a person truly comprehends the place of people in the great, constantly moving "river of life," their perishability, their evanescence, their insignificance, so to speak, it is impossible for that person not to become humble.
Blog text (3) -
His own ability to create illusions, which he found mirrored everywhere in Hollywood, made him obsessive about the hollowness and evanescence of celebrity, above all his own.
Academic text (2002) -
The evanescence of the morning mist surprised us as it quickly vanished with the rising sun.
Synonyms
65
3.7
A person or thing not seen where it was before
5
3.8
A slow loss of brightness, sound, or strength until almost gone
1
3.0
A slow loss of strength, color, or sound over time
1
8.9
A state of lasting only a short time, like a rainbow
1
8.2
A short time that passes quickly
A slow decrease in sound or light until it disappears
The state of lasting only a short time
Antonyms
How Lasting
15
5.5
22
3.8
2
8.1
- Literature
1
9.6
∞
1.0
Surface Forms
Morphology
Etymology
The word evanescence comes from the same root as the common word vanish, which means 'to disappear'. A helpful way to remember it is to think of something's 'essence' slowly 'vanishing', because evanescence means the slow 'fading away' or 'vanishing' of something from sight or memory.