- visit
- visit n Visit, visitation, call are comparable when they mean a coming to stay with another, usually for a brief time, as a courtesy, an act of friendship, or a business or professional diity.Visit applies not only to such a stay with another{
pay a visit to a friend
}{a physician's bill for visits
}{a welfare worker's visit
}but also, to a more prolonged stay as a house guest or in a place where one goes for rest, entertainment, or sightseeing{a week's visit in a friend's summer home
}{off for a visit to Washington
}{plan a visit to Europe
}is chiefly employed in reference to a formal or official visit (as to a church, a college, or a ship) made by one in authority (as an ecclesiastical superior, a school superintendent, or a medical inspector){parochial visitations of a bishop
}{a visitation and search of a merchant ship can be made only by an authorized official
}The term may also be used of something that visits one, often by or as if by the will of a superior power{ye gentle visitations of calm thought— Shelley
}or that is visited upon one and that is usually regarded as an affliction{an illness, a maiming accident or some other visitation of blind fate— Conrad
}Call applies only to a brief visit, such as one makes upon a person who is not a friend, but with whom one has social or official relations{a society woman must give a portion of her time to formal calls
}or by a person in quest of business or of a business order{the morning call of the grocer's boy
}The term, however, may be used in place of visit for a short social visit.
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.