into thin air

Idioms  

1. Also, into the blue. Completely disappeared, as in The report was here on my desk and now it's gone, vanished into thin air, or I don't know where they've gone—into the blue, for all I know. Both of these hyperbolic expressions, often preceded by vanish as in the first example, use the rarefied atmosphere far above the earth as a metaphor for an unknown location. Shakespeare wrote of ghosts that “melted . . . into thin air” (The Tempest, 4:1). An antonym for both is out of thin air, meaning “from an unknown place or source.” For example, She made up this excuse out of thin air, or The car appeared out of thin air. However, out of the blue is not precisely an antonym (see under out of a clear blue sky).

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Example Sentences

“The Inuit call him Nanuq, and in the stories he can fly, and disappear into thin air, and hear things miles away. My grandmother told me not to say Nanuq’s name out loud, or he would come in the night and steal me away.”

From Literature

It was like he had disappeared into thin air.

From Literature

“Polar bears can’t disappear into thin air, no matter what the Inuit stories say,” Owen told him.

From Literature

Anat and the ghost that gripped her had both vanished into thin air.

From Literature

“Whatever happened to her isn’t something the police can handle. She vanished into thin air while possessed by someone who might have been my ex-girlfriend.”

From Literature