disappear

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do a disappearing act

To vanish from sight or flee suddenly from a place. My kids always do a disappearing act when I tell them it's time for their chores. The three of us did a disappearing act, heading for the Mexican border so we could leave this all behind us.

See also: act, disappear

pull a disappearing act

To depart or go away very suddenly or without warning, especially so as to avoid doing something. My roommate loves to throw parties here, but she always pulls a disappearing act the next day when everything needs to be cleaned up! Brian is nearly two weeks late finishing his sales report—that's why he's been pulling a disappearing act whenever the boss is around.

disappear from (something)

1. To become no longer visible. I watched Jill's car drive away until it disappeared from view.

2. To become missing from some place, as if having been removed or become lost (usually to someone's surprise or confusion). I would give you my stapler, but it seems to have disappeared from my desk. That poor little girl disappeared from that school back in the 80s and was never found.

disappear into thin air

To vanish completely and without a trace. I would give you my stapler, but it seems to have disappeared into thin air.

disappear off the face of the earth

To vanish completely and without a trace. Has anyone talked to Christina lately? It's like she disappeared off the face of the earth.

See also: disappear, earth, face, of, off

disappear without (a) trace

1. To disappear without any indication to one's or something's whereabouts. Police have been searching for two weeks to find a young girl who disappeared without trace from her home in Rochester. Authorities are puzzled by the navy submarine that seemingly disappeared without a trace last Thursday.

2. To be forgotten about by the population as a whole, especially after being very popular. The digital pets fad took the world by storm in the late 1990s, but

disappear into the woodwork

To recede or absent oneself from public view; to become or remain hidden in society. The former movie star, never one to disappear into the woodwork, launched a very successful chain of restaurants and eventually ran for public office in Washington state. I think people expected us to disappear into the woodwork after the referendum results, but we made sure to stay firmly in the eye of the public.

disappear from something

to vanish from something or some place, especially from sight, view, or the face of the earth; to have been taken away from something. Jack disappeared all of a sudden last week, as if from the face of the earth. The car pulled away and disappeared from sight down the road.

do a disappearing act

Vanish, as in As soon as the teacher came outside, Mary did a disappearing act. This expression describes a sudden disappearance as if by magic and presumably alludes to a magician's performance. [Colloquial; early 1900s]

See also: act, disappear

do a disappearing act

go away without being seen to go, especially when someone is looking for you.

The suggestion here is that the person has vanished as completely and inexplicably as things vanish in a magician's act.

See also: act, disappear

do/perform/stage a disapˈpearing/ˈvanishing act

(informal) go away or be impossible to find when people need or want you: Ian always does a disappearing act when it’s time to wash the dishes.This refers to a magic trick done by a magician in which they make themselves or another person disappear.

See also: act, disappear, perform, stage, vanish

disappear/vanish off the face of the ˈearth

disappear completely: Keep looking — they can’t just have vanished off the face of the earth.

See also: disappear, earth, face, of, off, vanish

disappear, etc. into thin ˈair

disappear, etc. suddenly and in a mysterious way: The money vanished into thin air. Nobody knows what happened to it.

do a disappearing act

Informal

To vanish.

See also: act, disappear

References in classic literature ?

For an instant, without an exclamation, without a cry for help, Athos tried to sustain himself on the surface of the waters, but the weight dragged him down; he disappeared by degrees; soon nothing was to be seen except his long, floating hair; then both men disappeared and the bubbling of the water, which, in its turn, was soon effaced, alone indicated the spot where these two had sunk.

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We've a small army looking for the fellow, but it does seem as though he had disappeared off the face of the earth.

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Then all his suspicions were confirmed; the road by which the carriage had disappeared encircled the forest.

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Soon the waves of the bay disappeared behind a bend of rising ground, and the Floridan "champagne" alone offered itself to view.

At length these denizens of the swamps disappeared in their turn; smaller trees became thinly scattered among less dense thickets-- a few isolated groups detached in the midst of endless plains over which ranged herds of startled deer.

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The fact was, the general, who had heard first, how Nastasia Philipovna had fled to Moscow and had been discovered there by Rogojin; that she had then disappeared once more, and been found again by Rogojin, and how after that she had almost promised to marry him, now received news that she had once more disappeared, almost on the very day fixed for her wedding, flying somewhere into the interior of Russia this time, and that Prince Muishkin had left all his affairs in the hands of Salaskin and disappeared also--but whether he was with Nastasia, or had only set off in search of her, was unknown.

The lodgers had disappeared very quickly--Ferdishenko soon after the events at Nastasia Philipovna's, while the prince went to Moscow, as we know.

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Just as the light of the settling sun had disappeared, and a new moon had begun to throw its shadows on the earth, the fisher-men took their departure, in a boat, for a point that was situated on the western shore of the lake, at the distance of rather more than half a mile from the village.

Elizabeth watched the motion of the batteau as it pulled from the shore, letting loose its rope as it went, but it soon disappeared in the darkness, when the ear was her only guide to its evolutions.

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ISLAMABAD -- Members of Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP),in Indian occupied Kashmir, staged a demonstration at Press Colony in Srinagar demanding whereabouts of their enforced disappeared relatives.

APDP stages protest against enforced disappearances in IOK

ISLAMABAD:Members of Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP),in Indian occupied Kashmir, staged a demonstration at Press Colony in Srinagar demanding whereabouts of their enforced disappeared relatives.

APDP stages protest against enforced disappearances in IOK

Only recently did I learn the translation in Filipino of involuntary or enforced disappearance, the manner in which the so-called disappeared or 'desaparecidos' (Spanish), vanished from this earth without a trace.

'Ang Paghahanap/The Search'

The country's investigative committee has opened a criminal case into the crash of the plane, which disappeared from radar early Sunday after taking off from Sochi.

Russian Defense Ministry's Plane Crashes Over Black Sea

National carrier EgyptAir have revealed that on Thursday, a flight from Paris to Cairo had disappeared from radar before entering Egyptian airspace, according to a report by Reuters.

Egyptair says Paris-Cairo flight has \"disappeared\"

An estimated 17,000 Lebanese people disappeared during the 1975-90 Civil War and were never accounted for when fighting finished.

Online initiative shines light on missing

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