The missing girl vanished without a trace a year ago.
The papers seem to have vanished into thin air.
Dinosaurs vanished from the face of the earth millions of years ago.
These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'vanish.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Middle English vanisshen, borrowed from Anglo-French vaniss- stem of vanir, envanir, esvanir, going back to Vulgar Latin *exvānīre, restructuring of Latin ēvānēscere "to fade away, disappear," from ē-e- entry 1 + vānēscere "to pass from existence," inchoative verb derivative of vānus "empty, lacking content" — more at wane entry 1