seeming

1. gerundparticiplepresentpresent participle and gerund of seem

comparative more seeming · superlative most seeming

1. Appearing to the eye or mind (distinguished from, and often opposed to, real or actual).

   seeming friendship

   5 more examples

   O, good my lord, you have lost a friend / And I dare swear you borrow not that face / Of seeming sorrow—it is sure your own.

   c. 1596–1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Fourth, […]. Epilogue.”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene ii]

   I'le hide my anger in a seeming calm, And what I have to do, consult the while, And mask my vengeance underneath a smile.

   1671, Aphra Behn, The Amorous Prince, or, The Curious Husband, London: Thomas Dring, act II, scene 5, pages 32–33

   Of all the English philosophers, I most reverence Bacon, that great and hardy genius: he it is who, undaunted by the seeming difficulties that oppose, prompts human curiosity to examine every part of nature;

   1765, Oliver Goldsmith, Essays, London: W. Griffin, Essay 18, p. 150

   […] she was overcome like the thirsty one who is drawn toward the seeming water in the desert […]

   1876, George Eliot, chapter 27, in Daniel Deronda

   […] though they marched in seeming peace, the hearts of all the army, from the highest to the lowest, were downcast, and with every mile that they went north foreboding of evil grew heavier on them.

   1955, J. R. R. Tolkien, chapter 10, in The Return of the King, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, published 2012

   Synonyms: apparent, ostensible

plural seemings

1. countableuncountableOutward appearance.

   And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming

   1845 February, — Quarles [pseudonym; Edgar Allan Poe], “The Raven”, in The American Review, volume I, number II, New York, N.Y.; London: Wiley & Putnam, […], →OCLC

   2 more examples

   My loue is strengthned though more weake in seeming I loue not lesse, thogh lesse the show appeare,

   1609, William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 102”, in Shake-speares Sonnets. […], London: By G[eorge] Eld for T[homas] T[horpe] and are to be sold by William Aspley, →OCLC

   I am not what I seemed to her, he thought, and doubtless she is not what she seemed to me, but it is our lot to be irrevocably condemned to seemings and to deserve them too.

   1971, Iris Murdoch, An Accidental Man, New York: Viking, page 162

2. countableobsoleteuncountableApprehension; judgement.

   […] in her ears the sound Yet rung of his perswasive words, impregn’d With Reason, to her seeming, and with Truth;

   1667, John Milton, “Book VIII”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC, lines 736-738

   1 more example

   Nothing more cleare vnto their seeming, then that a new Jerusalem being often spoken of in Scripture, they vndoubtedly were themselues that newe Ierusalem,

   1604, Richard Hooker, Of the Lawes of Ecclesiasticall Politie, London: Preface, page 39