noun
-
outward appearance, esp without any inner substance or reality
-
a resemblance or copy
Etymology
Origin of semblance
1250–1300; Middle English < Middle French, equivalent to sembl ( er ) to seem ( see resemble) + -ance -ance
Explanation
Semblance is all about illusion. Cramming all of your dirty clothes into the closet gives the semblance, or false appearance, that you've done your laundry — but the stench might give you away. Semblance comes from the 14th-century French word for "resemble," and it is a noun for things that look one way on the outside but are very different on the inside. A popular combination is to say that a person or place has the "semblance of order," when, underneath, everything is out of control.
Vocabulary lists containing semblance
The Vocabulary.com Top 1000
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Romeo and Juliet
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The Pearl
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The executive director of the Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association, Mark Reeves, said in an interview, “Hopefully, we can hang on to what we got—some semblance of control and order.”
From The Wall Street Journal • May 10, 2026
What West Ham do have which Tottenham do not, however, is some semblance of form.
From BBC • Apr. 24, 2026
Maintaining a semblance of privacy is increasingly difficult in the age of social media, and how much we share with our unmarried partner about our financial affairs is on a need-to-know basis.
From MarketWatch • Apr. 13, 2026
Who doesn’t yearn to clean up their mistakes and find some semblance of happiness, even when contentment seems so far out of reach?
From Salon • Mar. 19, 2026
So he seemed to Odysseus, but really it was Athena in his semblance.
From "Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes" by Edith Hamilton
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
