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Appearance vs Surface - What's the difference?

appearance | surface |

As nouns the difference between appearance and surface

is that appearance is the act of appearing or coming into sight; the act of becoming visible to the eye while surface is the overside or up-side of a flat object such as a table, or of a liquid.

As a verb surface is

to provide something with a surface.

appearance

English

Alternative forms

* appearaunce

Noun

(en noun)
  • The act of appearing or coming into sight; the act of becoming visible to the eye.
  • A thing seen; a phenomenon; an apparition.
  • Personal presence; look; aspect; mien.
  • * (John Milton) (1608-1674)
  • And now am come to see . . . It thy appearance answer loud report.
  • *{{quote-book, year=1922, author=(Ben Travers)
  • , chapter=5, title= A Cuckoo in the Nest , passage=The most rapid and most seductive transition in all human nature is that which attends the palliation of a ravenous appetite.
  • Apparent likeness; external show; how something appears to others.
  • * Bible, (w) ix. 15
  • There was upon the tabernacle, as it were, the appearance of fire.
  • * Bible, 1 (w) xvi. 7
  • For man looketh on the outward appearance .
  • * Bible, (w) vii. 24
  • Judge not according to the appearance .
  • The act of appearing in a particular place, or in society, a company, or any proceedings; a coming before the public in a particular character.
  • * (John Milton) (1608-1674)
  • Will he now retire, After appearance , and again prolong Our expectation?
  • (legal) The coming into court of either of the parties; the being present in court; the coming into court of a party summoned in an action, either by himself or by his attorney, expressed by a formal entry by the proper officer to that effect; the act or proceeding by which a party proceeded against places himself before the court, and submits to its jurisdiction.
  • (medical) Chiefly used by nurses: the act of defecation by a patient.
  • Synonyms

    * (act of coming into sight) arrival, manifestation, * (a thing seen) spectacle, apparition, phenomenon, presence * (aspect of a person) aspect, air, figure, look, manner, mien * (outward show) semblance, show, pretense, or facade * (act of appearing in public) debut

    Derived terms

    () * court appearance * disappearance * keep up appearances * nonappearance * plate appearance * put in an appearance * reappearance * save appearances

    References

    *

    Statistics

    *

    surface

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • The overside or up-side of a flat object such as a table, or of a liquid.
  • *{{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
  • , chapter=Foreword citation , passage=A very neat old woman, still in her good outdoor coat and best beehive hat, was sitting at a polished mahogany table on whose surface there were several scored scratches so deep that a triangular piece of the veneer had come cleanly away,
  • The outside hull of a tangible object.
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2013-05-11, volume=407, issue=8835, page=80, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= The climate of Tibet: Pole-land , passage=Of all the transitions brought about on the Earth’s surface by temperature change, the melting of ice into water is the starkest. It is binary. And for the land beneath, the air above and the life around, it changes everything.}}
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-20, volume=408, issue=8845, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= Welcome to the plastisphere , passage=[The researchers] noticed many of their pieces of [plastic marine] debris sported surface pits around two microns across.}}
  • (lb) Outward or external appearance.
  • :
  • *(Vicesimus Knox) (1752-1821)
  • *:Vain and weak understandings, which penetrate no deeper than the surface .
  • *
  • *:“A tight little craft,” was Austin’s invariable comment on the matron; and she looked it, always trim and trig and smooth of surface like a converted yacht cleared for action. ¶ Near her wandered her husband, orientally bland, invariably affable,.
  • The locus of an equation (especially one with exactly two degrees of freedom) in a more-than-two-dimensional space.
  • (lb) That part of the side which is terminated by the flank prolonged, and the angle of the nearest bastion.
  • :(Stocqueler)
  • Synonyms

    * overside * superfice (archaic)

    Derived terms

    * surface mail * surficial

    Verb

  • To provide something with a surface.
  • To apply a surface to something.
  • To rise to the surface.
  • To come out of hiding.
  • For information or facts to become known.
  • To work a mine near the surface.
  • To appear or be found.