[f. the vb.]
1. The action or fact of disappearing.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Knt.’s T., 1502. And forth sche wente, and made a vanysshynge.
1473. Warkw., Chron. (Camden), 22. Afore the vanyschynge therof, it apperyd in the evynynge.
1611. Cotgr., Esvanouissement,… a vanishing out of sight.
1614. Raleigh, Hist. World, III. (1634), 7. As where it tels of Nebuchadnezzar his owne vanishing away.
1711. Addison, Spect., No. 44, ¶ 1. Thunder and Lightning … at the Vanishing of a Devil.
1834. Byron, Juan, XVI. xxiv. There was no great cause To think his vanishing unnatural.
1886. Athenæum, 9 Oct., 463/3. Amongst the vanishings and disappearances of the ‘unfit.’
2. Vanishing point, in perspective, the point in which receding parallel lines, if continued, appear to meet. Similarly vanishing line, plane.
1797. Encycl. Brit. (ed. 3), XIV. 183/2. Produce CB … and draw PV parallel to it…. V is its vanishing point.
1815. J. Smith, Panorama Sci. & Art, II. 711. Distance of a vanishing point, is the distance from the vanishing point on the picture to the eye of the spectator.
1840. Penny Cycl., XVII. 493. A plane W, which will be termed the vanishing plane of the original one. Ibid. The vanishing line and parallel of the vertex.
1851. Ruskin, Arrows of Chace (1880), I. 90. In Millais’ ‘Mariana’ … the top of the green curtain in the distant window has too low a vanishing-point.
1885. Leudesdorf, Cremona’s Proj. Geom., 5. The point I′, the image of the point at infinity I, is called the vanishing point of a′. Ibid., 21. In every plane σ passing through O lies a vanishing line i′, which is the image of the point at infinity in the same plane. Ibid. This plane φ′, which may be called the vanishing plane.
