séance means A ceremony where people try to communicate with the spirits of dead people, usually led by a medium. It carries an Arena rating of 1520, earned across 8 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, séance ranks #1,450 of 17,104 for Most Storied Words, #1,909 of 17,127 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #1,970 of 17,131 for Scariest Words, #2,643 of 17,127 for Most Vivid Words.
séance is pronounced /ˈseɪˌɑns/.
Why “séance” is a great word
A meeting, typically led by a medium, in which participants gather to attempt communication with spirits of the dead. From the French séance ('a sitting, session'), from Old French seoir ('to sit'), from Latin sedēre ('to sit'); first attested in English in the late 18th century for a formal session, with the spiritualist sense emerging in the mid-19th century. Unlike a 'session'—which is any convened gathering, from legislative to therapeutic—or a 'summoning'—which emphasizes the active conjuring rather than the sustained, seated vigil—a séance is defined by its structured stillness and collective anticipation. It is the circle of hands on a chilled table, the single candle guttering in the gloom, the held breath at a sudden rapping from within the wood—a ritual of longing that measures, by its failure or its fraud, the absolute depth of the silence.
Etymology
Borrowed from French séance (“sitting, session”).
noun
- A ceremony where people try to communicate with the spirits of dead people, usually led by a medium.e.g.“[B]ut only too often séances degenerate into pure sorcery or necromancy, attracting all kinds of undeveloped and earth-bound entities.” — 1936, Rollo Ahmed, The Black Art, London: Long, page 231:
- The sitting of an assembly to discuss a matter.
verb
- To hold a séance (communication with spirits).
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Words closest in meaning
By meaning, not spelling — each word's AI semantic fingerprint, nearest first.