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Appear vs Loom vs Emerge

Appear, loom and emerge all mean to come out into view. In use, however, they are only rarely interchangeable.

Appear is weakest in its implication of a definite physical background or a source; consequently it sometimes means merely to become visible or to become apparent (see EVIDENT).

  • one by one the stars appeared in the sky
  • nothing appears in the testimony to cause doubt of the defendant’s guilt

Sometimes it means to present oneself in public in a particular capacity or to be presented or given out to the public.

  • Clarence Darrow appeared as counsel for the defendant
  • Booth appeared nightly as Hamlet for the last two weeks of his run
  • the new biography of Lincoln will appear next month
  • weeklies usually appear on Thursday or Friday

Loom means appearing as through a mist or haze.

  • a smear o f . . . lead-colored paint had been laid on to obliterate Henchard’s name, though its letters dimly loomed through like ships in a fog
    Hardy
  • between the bed and the ottoman . . . the cot loomed in the shadows
    Bennett

Because things seen in a fog are often magnified by their indistinct outlines, loom, especially when followed in figurative use by large or great or when followed by up, suggests apparent and sometimes appalling magnitude.

  • some mornings it [a mesa] would loom up above the dark river like a blazing volcanic mountain
    Cather
  • that which loomed immense to fancy low before my reason lies
    Browning

Emerge definitely implies a coming out into the open from something that envelops: the word therefore presupposes a period or condition of concealment, obscurity, gestation, or insignificance

  • the sun emerged from the clouds
  • after a long hunt for him, we saw him emerging from the crowd
  • that part of northern Ohio where the Bentley farms lay had begun to emerge from pioneer life
    Anderson
  • Lord Sligo emerges from this account as an able and conscientious administrator
    Times Lit. Sup.