noun
definition
Likeness, similarity; the quality of being similar.
definition
The way something looks; appearance; form
Examples of semblance in a Sentence
His mouth wore its usual semblance of a smile.
It is a serious flaw in the play that the fate of the heroine is virtually decided before the curtain rises, and the poet is obliged to create by theatrical devices the semblance of a tragic conflict which, in reality, does not exist.
It had to be difficult to maintain any semblance of authority with a toddler clinging to his face, but he managed to do it.
Finally she achieved some semblance of order and left the room.
In the house, she removed her camping cookware from the cabinet and started scraping together some semblance of a meal.
The set harangue of teacher to pupil, in which steps in argument are slurred and the semblance of co-inquiry is rendered nugatory, must be eliminated.
In these cases it is the old royal house that retains the royal title and the semblance of power, while the real authority passes into new hands.
They were cultured, not at all savages, and for the first time since his capture, he held a glimmer of hope that he might find some semblance of happiness again.
By every unfair means the commissioners extorted the semblance of a popular vote in favour of incorporation, and France annexed the Netherlands.
I have been able to regain some semblance of normality in my life.
Ten years later the semblance of independence which was left to the khans of the Crimea was destroyed and the peninsula formally annexed to the empire.
In 1627 Ferdinand published a decree, which formally suppressed the ancient free constitution of Bohemia, though a semblance of representative government was left to the country.
It's not hard to retain some semblance of tradition and class with your cake.
In Croatia alone was there even a semblance of constitutional government.
But both imply a desire to carry out changes without friction and not to break up ancient forms; both proceed on the plan of securing to the stronger state the substance of power while allowing the weaker state a semblance of its old constitution.
We really need to maintain a semblance of normality here.
With an awful spasm Mr. Carr jerked his congested features into the ghastly semblance of a smile.
Since this label also applies to glow-in-the-dark cereals and borderline absurd chemical concoctions with barely any semblance to natural human sustenance, manufacturers have quite a bit of leeway.
For the first time since taking over the underworld, he had a small semblance of direction.
The Austrian attempt to occupy Bologna was repulsed by the citizens, but unfortunately this success was followed by anarchy and murder, and Farini only with difficulty restored a semblance of order.
The greater part of the territory was formally incorporated into the empire, and the petty potentates, such as the khan of Khiva and the amir of Bokhara, who were allowed to retain a semblance of their former sovereignty, became obsequious vassals of the White Tsar.
In taking this course Joseph made the capital mistake of neglecting the Machiavellian maxim that in changing the substance of cherished institutions the prince should be careful to preserve the semblance.
The arrangement was evidently intended to flatter the Babylonians by giving them once more the semblance of independence.
The few remaining Egyptian troops were ejected from Riad, and with them all semblance of Egyptian or Turkish rule disappeared from central Arabia.
The insurgent forces were under the command .of the Pole, Ludwig von Mieroslawski (1814-1878), who reduced them to some semblance of order.
To the north of the walls the site of old Herat was indicated by a vast mass of debris - mounds of bricks and pottery intersected by a network of shallow trenches, where the only semblance of a protective wall was the irregular line of the Tal-i-Bangi.
Cesare Borgia had entered into the Principe as a representative figure rather than an actual personage; so now conversely the theories of the Principe assumed the outward form and semblance of Castruccio.
In the Archipelago Hydriotes and Spetsiotes were at daggers drawn; the men of Psara were at open war with those of Samos; all semblance of discipline and cohesion had vanished from the Greek fleet.
In these proceedings there was no semblance of respect for law or justice, the Lords yielding (4th of January 1645) to the menaces of the Commons, who arrogated to themselves the right to declare any crimes they pleased high treason.
Indeed, the doctrine of "aspects" and "influences" fitted excellently with his mystical conception of the universe, and enabled him to discharge with a semblance of sincerity the most lucrative part of his professional duties.
This view harmonized with the docetic view which lurked in East and West, that the manhood of Jesus was but a likeness or semblance under which the God was concealed.
Although it did not enter into the calendar of the Greeks, and was not introduced at Rome till after the reign of Theodosius, it has been employed from time immemorial in almost all eastern countries; and as it forms neither an aliquot part of the year nor of the lunar month, those who reject the Mosaic recital will be at a loss, as Delambre remarks, to assign it to an origin having much semblance of probability.
This ka was supposed to be born together with the person to whom it belonged, and on the very rare occasions when it is depicted, wears his exact semblance.
The strength of the order now lies in Belgium, where at Tongerloo is a great Premonstratensian abbey that still maintains a semblance of its medieval state.
What is done in material semblance, he then argues, is repeated in the unseen medium of the Spirit.
The roads were until then, as a rule, merely tracks, deeply worn by ages of traffic into the semblance of ditches, and, under adverse weather conditions, impassable.
Parmenides sought to reduce the variety of nature to a single material element; but he strictly discriminated the inconstant 7retOri from the constant oboia, and, understanding by " existence " universal, invariable, immutable being, refused to attribute to the IraO'q anything more than the semblance of existence.
I have since thought it an omen that we should have chosen the semblance of one so ill-fated.
Those with panache, myself included, maintained the semblance of elaborate ritual.
Still at least one of you has retained a semblance of your regional accent.
Mass retailers like K-Mart soon stocked her Everyday line of home furnishings and she returned to her television program The Martha Stewart Show, brimming with ideas on attaining domestic perfection, or at least a semblance of it.
Dulce lifted her head and managed to reclaim some semblance of pride in spite of the situation.
In Mesopotamia and Yemen disturbance was endemic; nearer home, a semblance of loyalty was maintained in the army and among the Mussulman population by a system of delation and espionage, and by wholesale arrests; while, obsessed by terror of assassination, the sultan withdrew himself into fortified seclusion in the palace of Yildiz.
The vision at Valarshapat was invented later by the Armenians when they broke with the Greeks, in order to give to their church the semblance, if not of apostolic, at least of divine origin.
But many of the simpler P Y ler P forms of life may undergo desiccation to such an extent as to arrest their vital manifestations and convert them into the semblance of not-living matter, and yet remain potentially alive.
Editors seemed tc be incapable of rising above the dead level of political strife, anc their utterances were not relieved even by a semblance of fairness Readers turned away in disgust, and journal after journal passe out of existence.
In 63 it suited the policy of Pompey that he should be restored to the high priesthood, with some semblance of supreme command, but of much of this semblance even he was soon again deprived by the arrangement of the pro-consul Gabinius, according to which Palestine was in 57 B.C. divided into five separate circles (auv060c, vvv&3pca).
Until the following March, Washington's work was to bring about some semblance of military organization and discipline, to collect ammunition and military stores, to correspond with Congress and the colonial authorities, to guide military operations in widely separate parts of the country, to create a military system for a people entirely unaccustomed to such a thing and impatient and suspicious under it, and to bend the course of events steadily towards driving the British out of Boston.
Ignatius, continuing to refuse the abdication which could alone have given Photius's elevation a semblance of legality, was treated with extreme severity.
Its subject is, however, " Nature "; and nature, besides its unity, has also the semblance, if no more than the semblance, of plurality.