appearance

appearance, look, aspect, semblance denote the outward show presented by a person or thing.

Appearance often carries no additional implications

{

judge not according to the appearance— Jn 7:24

}

{

in drawing, represent the appearances of things, never what you know the things to be— Ruskin

}

The word, however, frequently implies an apparent as opposed to an actual or genuine character and therefore often connotes hypocrisy, dissembling, or pretense when used of persons or their actions

{

to be able to tyrannize effectively they needed the title and appearance of constitutional authority— Huxley

}

{

they spent their lives trying to keep up appearances, and to make his salary do more than it could— Cather

}

Look is often indistinguishable from appearance except that it more often occurs in the plural

{

never judge a thing merely by its looks

}

They are not interchangeable, however, in all instances. When a personal impression or a judgment is implied, appearance is the precise word

{

Aristotle . . . while admitting that Plato’s scheme has a plausible appearance of philanthropy, maintains that it is inapplicable to the facts of human nature— Dickinson

}

When the emphasis is upon concrete details (as of color, shape, or expression) observable to everybody, look is a better choice

{

he had the look of a man who works indoors and takes little exercise

}

{

I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their good intellects— Wilde

}

Specifically look is often applied to a person’s expression as manifest in his face or posture

{

she had a look about her that I wish I could forget —the look of a scared thing sitting in a net!— Millay

}

Aspect, like look, stresses the features of a person or thing but when applied to persons, it usually distinctively suggests the characteristic or habitual appearance and expression, especially facial expression

{

not risking a landing because of the fierce aspect of the natives— Heiser

}

{

he was a very handsome man, of a commanding aspect — Austen

}

Aspect often specifically implies reference to a facet or to the features that give something (as a place, an age, or a situation) its peculiar or distinctive character

{

the aspect of affairs was very alarming— Dickens

}

{

fifty years from now, it may be, the olive tree will almost have disappeared from southern France, and Provence will wear another aspect— Huxley

}

{

democracy . . . has different aspects in different lands— Sulzberger

}

Semblance basically implies outward seeming without necessarily suggesting a false appearance

{

it is the semblance which interests the painter, not the actual object— Times Lit. Sup.

}

Nevertheless it is rarely used in this sense without an expressed or implied contrast between the outward appearance and the inner reality

{

thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie thy soul’s immensity— Wordsworth

}

Sometimes, however, the word stresses the likeness of the thing to something else without suggesting deceptiveness in the appearance

{

a piked road that even then had begun to take on the semblance of a street— Anderson

}