different between vanish vs houdini

English

Etymology

Aphetic for obsolete evanish, from Middle English vanyshen, evaneschen, from Old French esvanir, esvaniss- (modern French évanouir), from Vulgar Latin *exvanire (“to vanish, disappear, to fade out”), from Latin evanescere, from vanus (“empty”).

Pronunciation

• enPR: v?n'?sh, IPA^(key): /?væn??/
• Rhymes: -æn??
• Hyphenation: van?ish

Verb

vanish (third-person singular simple present vanishes, present participle vanishing, simple past and past participle vanished)

1. To become invisible or to move out of view unnoticed.
   • The Bat—they called him the Bat. Like a bat he chose the night hours for his work of rapine; like a bat he struck and vanished, pouncingly, noiselessly; like a bat he never showed himself to the face of the day.

2. (mathematics) To become equal to zero.

3. (transitive) to disappear; to kidnap
   • 2011, Patrick Meaney, Our Sentence Is Up: Seeing Grant Morrison's the Invisibles, Sequart (?ISBN), page 330:

     And as if to prove it, one of his friends was vanished and was never seen again. The guy got in a taxi one night, and no one ever saw him ever again.

   • 2004, John Varley, The John Varley Reader, Penguin (?ISBN)

     It was whispered that men had been “vanished” by the Line and returned everted. Turned inside out.

Synonyms

• disappear

Derived terms

• vanishing point
• vanishing spray

Related terms

• vain

Translations

Noun

vanish (plural vanishes)

1. (phonetics) The brief terminal part of a vowel or vocal element, differing more or less in quality from the main part.
   • 1827, James Rush, The Philosophy of the Human Voice

     The median stres may also on a protracted quantity , slightly resemble respectively that of the radical and of the vanish , by sudenly enlarging in the course of the prolongation and gradualy diminishing ; and by the reverse

2. A magic trick in which something seems to disappear.

See also

• glide

Anagrams

• shavin'