v. Forms: 5–6 evanesch, -isch, Sc. evanis, 7– evanish. [a. OF. evaniss-, lengthened stem of evanir, corresp. to It. svanire:—popular L. *exvānīre = class. L. ēvānescĕre: see EVANESCE.]
1. intr. To vanish out of sight, disappear from view: a. of objects present to the eye.
1432–50. trans. Higden (Rolls), I. 370. Then Criste euaneschede awey.
1536. Bellenden, Cron. Scot. (1821), I. p. xxxiii. Thay [heryings] be now evanist, for offence that is maid aganis sum Sanct.
1753. T. Melvill, in Phil. Trans., XLVIII. 268. A satellite, seen from the earth, ought to change its colour … and at last evanish in violet.
a. 1813. A. Wilson, Poems, Foresters. At last the path evanishes from view.
1880. Browning, Dram. Idylls, Ser. II. Muléykeh, 99. And a leap indeed gave she, and evanished for ever more.
b. of objects present only to the mind.
1599. James I., Βασιλικον Δωρον (1603), 104. The people will conceiue … præ-occupied conceits of the Kings inward intention: which although with time … it will euanish, by the euidence of contrary effects, yet interim patitur iustus.
1604. Earl Stirling, Avrora, li. My happinesse evanish’d with the sleepe.
1728. Ramsay, Gentle Sheph., Poems (1844), 43. And cares evanish like a morning dream.
a. 1813. A. Wilson, Poems, To T. Wotherspoon. When all these evanished and horror distressed me.
2. To vanish out of existence; to die away; to become dissipated or dispelled: said of both material and immaterial objects. Also with away.
1597. Lowe, Chirurg. (1634), 84. That [Carbuncle] which appeareth and evanisheth away, is mortall.
1604. James I., Counterbl. to Tobacco (Arb.), 109. All his members shall become feeble … and in the end … he shall euanish in a Lethargie.
1629. Rutherford, Lett., No. 4 (1862), I. 44. A star, which going out of our sight, doth not die and evanish, but shineth in another hemisphere.
1639. J. Corbet, Ungirding Scott. Armour, 6. If hee [the king] at the beginning had showne himselfe like a blazing Star, you had all evanished as smoak.
1790. H. Boyd, Ruins of Athens, in Poet. Reg. (1806–7), 75. Th’ imperial bubble … breaks Spontaneous, or … Evanishes to nothing.
1830. Tennyson, Poems, 77. When thy light perisheth … Our life evanisheth.
1880. Muirhead, trans. Instit. Gaius, II. § 244. Servius holds … that the legacy evanishes if at the time it vests the legatee be still in potestate.
Hence Evanished ppl. a., that has vanished, in senses of the vb. Evanishing vbl. sb., the action of the vb. EVANISH; an instance of the same. Evanishing ppl. a., that vanishes or disappears. Evanishment, the action of evanishing, the fact of having evanished, disappearance.
1818. Coleridge, Lit. Remains (1836), I. 204. When … convalescence has made its [the imagination’s] chilled and evanished figures and landscape bud, blossom and live in scarlet, green and snow white.
1829. J. Wilson, in Blackw. Mag., XXVI. 544. It hangs in the abyss of the evanish’d lake.
1853. G. Tate, in G. Johnston, Nat. Hist. E. Bord., I. 297. We shall now describe the forms of evanished animal life.
1633. W. Struther, True Happines, 38. The first is a vacuitie; the second is a weaknesse; and the third an evanishing.
1797. Sir W. Scott, in Robberds, Mem. W. Taylor (1843), I. 99. After the evanishing of the deer.
1872. M. Collins, Two Plunges for a Pearl, II. x. 176. Ianthe’s evanishing caused the Earl of Chessington to be more in love than ever.
1629. Symmer, Spir. Posie, I. i. 7. That evanishing shadow of seeming Charity.
a. 1649. Drumm. of Hawth., Bibl. Edin., Lectori, Wks. 222. Riches being momentary and evanishing.
1886. Pall Mall Gaz., 14 July, 1/1. He has pursued the rapidly evanishing phantom of a Home Rule majority.
1797. Mrs. A. M. Bennett, Beggar Girl (1813), II. 174. On the evanishment of her ducal vision.
1836. T. Hook, G. Gurney, viii. I contented myself with watching the evanishment of my bright star from the sphere which she adorned and illuminated.
1868. Browning, Ring & Bk., VII. 1728. May my evanishment for evermore Help further to relieve the heart.
