Appearing

How to spell appearing

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce appearing

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does appearing mean?

1. verbPresent participle of appear: coming into view, becoming evident, or performing publicly.

Appearing in a sentence

• She is appearing in a new stage production this autumn.

• Cracks are appearing along the bathroom ceiling after the leak.

Where does appearing come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb apparere, which meant 'to come into view' or 'to become visible', formed from the prefix ad- meaning 'to' or 'toward' (here softened to ap- before the p) and parere meaning 'to come forth' or 'to be visible'. The word travelled into English through Old French aparoir during the medieval period, settling into Middle English as 'appear' by the 1300s. The present participle 'appearing' simply adds the familiar -ing ending. The doubled p is a direct fossil of that assimilated Latin prefix, where ad- shifted to match the following p, and that is exactly the spelling point worth remembering. The same parere root also gives us 'apparent' and 'apparition', all sharing the underlying idea of something becoming visible.

How the word is built

• ap- (assimilated form of ad-: to, toward)
• pear (from Latin parere: to come into view)
• -ing (present participle suffix)