apparition vs appearance

apparition

noun
  • An act of becoming visible; appearance; visibility. 

  • An unexpected, wonderful, or preternatural appearance; especially something such as a ghost or phantom. 

  • The first appearance of a star or other luminary after having been invisible or obscured; opposed to occultation. 

  • A period of consecutive days or nights when a particular celestial body may be observed, beginning with the heliacal rising of the body and ending with its heliacal setting. 

  • The thing appearing; a visible object; a form. 

appearance

noun
  • The act of appearing or coming into sight; the act of becoming visible to the eye. 

  • Chiefly used by nurses: the act of defecation by a patient. 

  • The act of appearing in a particular place, or in society, a company, or any proceedings; a coming before the public in a particular character. 

  • An instance of someone coming into a court of law to be part of a trial, either in person or represented by an attorney or such like; a court appearance 

  • A thing seen; a phenomenon; an apparition. 

  • The way something looks; personal presence 

  • That which is not substance, essence, hypostasis; the outward reality as opposed to the underlying reality 

  • Apparent likeness; the way which something or someone appears to others. 

How often have the words apparition and appearance occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )