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A beginning or first attempt; hence, a first appearance before the public, as of an actor or public speaker.

A person who makes his (or her) first appearance before the public.

; having power to mislead, or impress with false opinions; as, a deceptive countenance or appearance. Language altogether deceptive, and hiding the deeper reality from our eyes. Trench. Deceptive cadence (Mus.), a cadence on the subdominant, or in some foreign key, postponing the final close.

To destroy or mar the face or external appearance of; to disfigure; to injure, spoil, or mar, by effacing or obliterating important features or portions of; as, to deface a monument; to deface an edifice; to deface writing; to deface a note, deed, or bond; to deface a record. "This high face defaced." Emerson. So by fa…

of, or failure to take, some step necessary to secure the benefit of law, as a failure to appear in court at a day assigned, especially of the defendant in a suit when called to make answer; also of jurors, witnesses, etc. In default of, in case of failure or lack of. Cooks could make artificial birds and fishes in def…

One who makes default; one who fails to appear in court when court when called.

expunge; to dele; to omit. I have, therefore, . . . inserted eleven stanzas which do not appear in Sir Walter Scott's version, and have deleted eight. Aytoun.

The sudden disappearance of inflammation.

out. [Obs.] The latter I demur, for in their looks Much reason, and in their actions, oft appears. Milton.

y a crystalline medium, such that the light which had been extinguished by the analyzer reappears as if the polarization had been anulled. The word is inappropriate, as the ray does not return to the unpolarized condition.

n equation) in a lower degree. To depress the pole (Naut.), to cause the sidereal pole to appear lower or nearer the horizon, as by sailing toward the equator.

p of unicellular algæ in which the species have a greenish color, and the cells generally appear as if they consisted of two coalescing halves.

Resembling a dew-covered surface; appearing as if covered with dew.

ialect; the dialect of the learned. In the midst of this Babel of dialects there suddenly appeared a standard English language. Earle. [Charles V.] could address his subjects from every quarter in their native dialect. Prescott.

and laws of being -- higher metaphysics. By Kant, it was employed to signify the logic of appearances or illusions, whether these arise from accident or error, or from those necessary limitations which, according to this philosopher, originate in the constitution of the human intellect.

That phase of the moon in which it appears bisected, or shows only half its disk, as at the quadratures.

become imperceptible; to vanish; -- often with out or away. Blemishes may die away and disappear amidst the brightness. Spectator.

on of light in passing by the edges of opaque bodies or through narrow slits, causing the appearance of parallel bands or fringes of prismatic colors, as by the action of a grating of fine lines or bars. Remarked by Grimaldi (1665), and referred by him to a property of light which he called diffraction. Whewell. Diffra…

Consisting of only one half of what the normal condition requires; having the appearance of lacking one half; as, a dimidiate leaf, which has only one side developed.

To become or appear less or smaller; to lessen; as, the apparent size of an object diminishes as we recede from it.