séance

séance

See also: seance and Séance

English

Alternative forms

• seance

Etymology

From French séance (“sitting, session”).

Pronunciation

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈseɪˌɑns/

Noun

séance (plural séances)

1. A ceremony where people try to communicate with the spirits of dead people, usually led by a medium.
   • 1936, Rollo Ahmed, The Black Art, London: Long, page 231:

     [B]ut only too often séances degenerate into pure sorcery or necromancy, attracting all kinds of undeveloped and earth-bound entities.

2. (dated) The sitting of an assembly to discuss a matter.

Translations

a ceremony where people try to communicate with the spirits

Bulgarian: сеанс (bg) m (seans) Chinese: 降神会 (jiàngshén huì) Dutch: seance (nl) m or f Finnish: spiritismisessio French: séance de spiritisme (fr) f German: Séance (de) f Hebrew: העלאה באוב‎ f Hungarian: szeánsz (hu) Icelandic: miðilsfundur m Italian: seduta spiritica f Japanese: 神降ろし (kami oroshi) Maori: kauwhata Norwegian: Bokmål: seanse m Polish: seans (pl) m Portuguese: sessão espírita f Russian: сеа́нс (ru) m (seáns), спирити́ческий сеа́нс m (spiritíčeskij seáns) Spanish: sesión espiritista f Swedish: seans (sv) c Turkish: seans (tr) Yiddish: אוב‎ (ub)

Verb

séance (third-person singular simple present séances, present participle séancing, simple past and past participle séanced)

1. To hold a séance (communication with spirits).

Anagrams

• Neaces, Seneca, acenes, censae, encase, scenae, scæne

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French

Etymology

séant +‎ -ance, possibly corresponding to Latin sedentia.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /se.ɑ̃s/

• Audio (France, Paris)

  (file)

• Homophone: séances
• Hyphenation: sé‧ance
• Rhymes: -ɑ̃s

Noun

séance f (plural séances)

1. session

Derived terms

• préséance
• séance tenante

Descendants

• → Norwegian Bokmål: seanse
• → Turkish: seans

Further reading

• “séance”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.