appear

Etymology

From Middle English apperen, aperen, borrowed from Old French aparoir (French apparoir, apparaître), from Latin appāreō (“I appear”), from ad (“to”) + pāreō (“I come forth, I become visible”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *peh₂-s- (“watch, see”), s-present of *peh₂- (“protect”).

verb

1. (intransitive) To come or be in sight; to be in view; to become visible.
   There were also particles no one had predicted that just appeared. Five of them […, i]n order of increasing modernity, […] are the neutrino, the pi meson, the antiproton, the quark and the Higgs boson. 2012 March-April, Jeremy Bernstein, “A Palette of Particles”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 2, page 146
2. (intransitive) To come before the public.
   A great writer appeared at that time.
   Miss Phyllis Morgan, as the hapless heroine dressed in the shabbiest of clothes, appears in the midst of a gay and giddy throng; she apostrophises all and sundry there, including the villain, and has a magnificent scene which always brings down the house, and nightly adds to her histrionic laurels. 1905, Baroness Emmuska Orczy, chapter 2, in The Affair at the Novelty Theatre
3. (intransitive) To stand in presence of some authority, tribunal, or superior person, to answer a charge, plead a cause, etc.; to present oneself as a party or advocate before a court, or as a person to be tried.
4. (intransitive) To become visible to the apprehension of the mind; to be known as a subject of observation or comprehension, or as a thing proved; to be obvious or manifest.
   ‘Then the father has a great fight with his terrible conscience,’ said Munday with granite seriousness. ‘Should he make a row with the police […]? Or should he say nothing about it and condone brutality for fear of appearing in the newspapers? 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 18, in The China Governess
   Surprisingly, this analysis revealed that acute exposure to solvent vapors at concentrations below those associated with long-term effects appears to increase the risk of a fatal automobile accident. Furthermore, this increase in risk is comparable to the risk of death from leukemia after long-term exposure to benzene,[…]. 2013 July-August, Philip J. Bushnell, “Solvents, Ethanol, Car Crashes & Tolerance”, in American Scientist
5. (intransitive, copulative) To seem; to have a certain semblance; to look.
   He appeared quite happy with the result.
   Mr. Campion appeared suitably impressed and she warmed to him. He was very easy to talk to with those long clown lines in his pale face, a natural goon, born rather too early she suspected. 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 5, in The China Governess
6. (transitive) To bring into view.