Vanishing

How to spell vanishing

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce vanishing

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does vanishing mean?

1. verbPassing suddenly or gradually out of sight or existence.
2. adjectiveBecoming smaller, rarer, or harder to find.

Vanishing in a sentence

• verb

  The magician seemed to be vanishing behind a cloud of smoke.

• adjective

  The artist drew every line back toward a single vanishing point on the horizon.

• verb

  She watched the morning fog vanishing as the sun climbed higher.

• adjective

  Local shopkeepers represent a vanishing way of life in the village.

Where does vanishing come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb vanescere, meaning 'to disappear' or 'to fade away', which was built on the adjective vanus, meaning 'empty' or 'void'. That same vanus root sits inside familiar relatives such as 'vain' and 'vanity', all carrying the underlying idea of emptiness. The verb travelled into English through Old French forms like esvanir during the late 1200s and early 1300s, where the French -iss- conjugation left its mark as the English -ish ending. By the time English speakers were writing 'vanish', it firmly meant to pass suddenly out of sight, and adding -ing produced both the ordinary present participle and adjectives like 'vanishing point'. Because the word keeps a single n and a single s, the main spelling caution is resisting the urge to double either consonant.

How the word is built

• van- (from Latin vanus: empty, void)
• -ish (verb-forming suffix via Old French -iss-)
• -ing (present participle/adjective suffix)