Presence Meaning
/ˈpɹɛzn̩s/Definition, CEFR level B1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounThe fact or condition of being present, or of being within sight or call, or at hand.
nounThe part of space within one's immediate vicinity.
Sentence Examples
He was still as still in the presence of danger.
Mary is not used to being made fun of in the presence of others.
He hardly seemed to notice my presence.
CEFR Practice Quiz
The teacher noted the student's ____ in class every day this month.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
Her calm ____ in the room had a reassuring effect on everyone who was feeling anxious.
Word Origin & History
Through Old French presence, from Latin praesentia (“a being present”), from praesentem. Displaced native Old English andweardnes.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"Carried somehow, somewhither, for some reason, on these surging floods, were these travelers, of errand not wholly obvious to their fellows, yet of such sort as to call into query alike the nature of their errand and their own relations. It is easily earned repetition to state that Josephine St. Auban's was a presence not to be concealed."
— 1910, Emerson Hough, chapter II, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
"Perrin Ferris succeeds in his equally demanding task of maintaining some semblance of presence while sharing the stage with a chronic upstager."
— 1976 February 14, Don Shewey, “Haunted Host (review)”, in Gay Community News, volume 3, number 33, page 14:
"Presence means: the constant abiding that approaches man, reaches him, is extended to him. But what is this source of this extending reach to which the present belongs as presencing, insofar as there is presence? True, man always remains approached by the presencing of something actually present without explicitly heeding presencing itself."
— 1972, Joan Stambaugh, Time and being (lecture), translation of original by Martin Heidegger, page 13:
"Within a completely neutral horizon, the primordial continuous stream of experience is presenced without interruption. As this time, the past and future have no meaning apart from the now in which they are presenced."
— 1985, David Edward Shaner, The Bodymind Experience in Japanese Buddhism: A Phenomenological Study of Kūkai and Dōgen, page 59:
"Just as the bread and butter can be presenced as more than just the bread and the butter, so baking a loaf of bread can be more than just the baking, the baker, and the bread."
— 1998, H. Peter Steeves, Founding Community: A Phenomenological-Ethical Inquiry, page 59:
Explore More B1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The teacher noted the student's ____ in class every day this month.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
Her calm ____ in the room had a reassuring effect on everyone who was feeling anxious.