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Apparent vs Surface - What's the difference?

apparent | surface |

As an adjective apparent

is capable of being seen, or easily seen; open to view; visible to the eye; within sight or view.

As a verb surface is

.

apparent

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Capable of being seen, or easily seen; open to view; visible to the eye; within sight or view.
  • * 1667, (John Milton), (Paradise Lost) , ,
  • […] Hesperus, that led / The starry host, rode brightest, till the moon, / Rising in clouded majesty, at length / Apparent queen unveiled her peerless light, / And o’er the dark her silver mantle threw.
  • Clear or manifest to the understanding; plain; evident; obvious; known; palpable; indubitable.
  • * (William Shakespeare), ,
  • Salisbury: It is apparent foul-play; and ’tis shame / That greatness should so grossly offer it: / So thrive it in your game! and so, farewell.
  • * 1897 , (Bram Stoker), (Dracula) Chapter 20
  • When I came to Renfield's room I found him lying on the floor on his left side in a glittering pool of blood. When I went to move him, it became at once apparent that he had received some terrible injuries.
  • Appearing to the eye or mind (distinguished from, but not necessarily opposed to, true or real); seeming.
  • * 1785, (Thomas Reid), Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man , Essay II (“Of the Powers we have by means of our External Senses”), Chapter XIX (“Of Matter and of Space”),
  • What (George Berkeley) calls visible magnitude was by astronomers called apparent magnitude.
  • * 1848 , , (The History of England from the Accession of James the Second) ,
  • To live on terms of civility, and even of apparent friendship.
  • * 1911 , , “”,
  • This apparent motion is due to the finite velocity of light, and the progressive motion of the observer with the earth, as it performs its yearly course about the sun.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-03, volume=408, issue=8847, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= Boundary problems , passage=Economics is a messy discipline: too fluid to be a science, too rigorous to be an art. Perhaps it is fitting that economists’ most-used metric, gross domestic product (GDP), is a tangle too. GDP measures the total value of output in an economic territory. Its apparent simplicity explains why it is scrutinised down to tenths of a percentage point every month.}}

    Usage notes

    * The word (term) has two common uses that are almost in opposition. One means roughly “clear; clearly true”, and serves to make a statement more decisive: *: It was apparent that no one knew the answer. (=No one knew the answer, and it showed.) * The other is roughly “seeming; to all appearances”, and serves to make a statement less decisive: *: The apparent source of the hubbub was a stray kitten. (=There was a stray kitten, and it seemed to be the source of the hubbub.) * The same ambivalence occurs with the derived adverb (apparently), which usually means “seemingly” but can also mean “clearly”, especially when it is modified by another adverb, such as (quite).

    Synonyms

    * (easy to see) visible, distinct, plain, obvious, clear * (easy to understand) distinct, plain, obvious, clear, certain, evident, manifest, indubitable, notorious, transparent * (seeming to be the case) illusory, superficial

    Antonyms

    * (within sight or view) hidden, invisible * (clear to the understanding) ambiguous, obscure

    Derived terms

    * apparency * apparent horizon * apparent time * apparently * apparentness * heir apparent

    References

    * ----

    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.