v. [ad. L. ēvānescĕ-re, f. ē out + vānescĕre to vanish, f. vānus empty, insubstantial, VAIN. Cf. EVANISH.] intr. To fade out of sight, ‘melt into thin air,’ disappear; chiefly fig. Also in scientific use, To disappear, become effaced; said e.g. of markings or organs in plants, or of the edge of a polyhedron when two adjacent faces are made to rotate into one plane.
1822. De Quincey, Confess. (1862), 59. A single psychological discovery, therfore, caused my musical anticipations to evanesce.
1854. Faber, Growth in Holiness, xxiii. (1872), 472. As soon as these spiritual favours are known they will evanesce.
1857. Whewell, Hist. Induct. Sc., III. 366. The intermediate corolla having evanesced.
1875. Jowett, Plato (ed. 2), I. 77. No sooner has this general notion been formed than it evanesces before the dialectic of Socrates.
