appearance
ap·pear·ance/əˈpiɹ.əns/noun
appearance is spelled A-P-P-E-A-R-A-N-C-E, 3 syllables: ap·pear·ance. The wrong spelling people search most is apperance: about 320 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 19 of all searches for the word. Appearance is a noun meaning “The act of appearing or coming into sight; the act of becoming visible to the eye”. The plural of appearance is appearances.
How many letters and syllables are in appearance?
| Letters | 10: A-P-P-E-A-R-A-N-C-E |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 3: ap·pear·ance |
| In writing | 49 times per million words; the 2,072nd most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 4; the most searched, apperance, about 320 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).
How do you spell appearance?
Appearance is spelled A-P-P-E-A-R-A-N-C-E. 4 wrong spellings are searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 13 of the searches for appearance in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is appearance?
Appearance appears 49 times per million words in written English, the 2,072nd most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce appearance?
- UK /əˈpɪə.ɹəns/
- US /əˈpiɹ.əns/
Appearance has 3 syllables, split ap·pear·ance in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-appearance.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of appearance
- appearances plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does appearance mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
The act of appearing or coming into sight; the act of becoming visible to the eye.
His sudden appearance surprised me.
- 2
A thing seen; a phenomenon; an apparition.
There was a strange appearance in the sky.
- 3
The way something looks; personal presence
- 4
Apparent likeness; the way which something or someone appears to others.
Some people say I'm shallow because I care so much about my appearance.
- 5
That which is not substance, essence, hypostasis; the outward reality as opposed to the underlying reality
Catholicism teaches that the Eucharist, while remaining under the physical appearance of bread and wine, becomes really and truly the body and the blood of Christ.
- 6
The act of appearing in a particular place, or in society, a company, or any proceedings; a coming before the public in a particular character.
A person makes his appearance as an historian, an artist, or an orator.
- 7
An instance of someone coming into a court of law to be part of a trial, lawsuit or other proceeding, either in person or represented by an attorney or such like; a court appearance
- 8
Chiefly used by nurses: the act of defecation by a patient.
The patient had a small bowel obstruction and there was no appearance until after the obstruction resolved.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Appearance in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | apparition , apparence , comparution |
| German | Erscheinen, Auftritt , Aussehen |
| Portuguese | aparição, aparecimento , aparência , aspecto |
| Spanish | aparición, aparecimiento , apariencia, hechura, estampa |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does appearance come from?
Borrowed from Middle French apparence, from Latin apparentia, from appareo. Morphologically appear + -ance. Doublet of apparence and apparency. Displaced native Old English hīew (“the way something looks or seems”) and ætīewednes (“act of appearing or coming into view”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).