[f. LOOM v.2 + -ING1.] A coming indistinctly into view.
1627. Capt. Smith, Seaman’s Gram., xi. 53. The looming of a ship is her prospectiue, that is, as she doth shew great or little.
1634. Relat. Ld. Baltimore’s Plantat. (1865), 7. At the first loaming of the ship vpon the river, wee found … all the Countrey in Armes.
1684. Bucaniers Amer. (1698), II. 84. This day we saw the looming of a very high land.
1790. Roy, in Phil. Trans., LXXX. 266. Wherever the most faint looming of the land in a very clear day can be discerned.
1807. Europ. Mag., LII. 441/2. [Sailor loq.] ‘Split me but I know the loaming of the land hereabouts.’
1829. Nat. Philos. Optics, xviii. 56 (U.K.S.). The elevation of coasts, ships, and mountains above their usual level, when seen in the distant horizon, has been long known and described under the name of Looming.
1853. Kane, Grinnell Exp., ix. (1856), 69. No evidences of refraction visible, except some slight loomings of the more distant bergs.
1861. C. J. Andersson, Okavango River, vii. 87. A crashing and cracking … announced the approach of elephants; in a few moments afterwards the looming of a dozen huge unwieldy figures in the distance told of their arrival.
fig. a. 1839. Galt, Demon of Destiny, VII. (1840), 50. Tremendous loomings of eternal things.
