Obs. Also aparence, -ance, -aunce. [a. OFr. aparence, -ance. The earlier form of the sb. answering to adj. apparent, which was subseq. refashioned as APPEARANCE, by assimilation to the vb. appear. Apparence survived, esp. in senses that connected it more closely with apparent than appear, till c. 1686: cf. next.]
1. = APPEARANCE (which see for other quotations) in all its senses.
c. 1384. Chaucer, H. of Fame, 265. Allis what harme doth apparence Whan hit is fals in existence.
1686. Goad, Celest. Bodies, I. iv. 11. Some Excess … but whether … as to Wind, or Drought, or Wet, they [comets] do not determine; that Determination belongeth to no one Apparence.
2. The position of being heir apparent; apparency.
c. 1375. Wyclif, Serm., cxxi. Wks. 1869, I. 402. Ȝif a man be eire of þe blisse of hevene … apparaunce of his heritage is more licli to trewe men.
1628. Coke, On Litt., 35 b. It is in respect of the constant and perpetuall apparance that the son and heire apparent may endow his wife of his father’s Land.
