What verbs best describe something appearing and disappearing alternately? [closed]
I'm trying to describe the sight of houses on the mountain appearing and disappearing alternately because of the fog. What verbs best describe that?
Mike Graham answer made me imagine the houses inside the fog were appearing and disapearing reapidly.
Perhaps, the word "fade" captures better the idea that the houses disapear in the fog. Also, I do not think we need to be as metaphorical:
As the fog rolled through, the houses fade in and out of view.
You could use flicker somewhat metaphorically
As the fog rolled through, the houses seemed to flicker in and out of existence.
intermittently
in a way that does not happen regularly or continuously; in a way that stops and starts repeatedly or with periods in between:
Example sentence: The house appears intermittently through the fog.
Source:Cambridge Dictionary
The expression '[They] V-ed in and out of vision' is often used.
Choices of verb include:
- move (very prosaic)
- phase (formal)
- shift (ordinary, and can sound unsubtle)
- stream (for rapid flickering)
- bob (on the comical side)
- drift (languid, perhaps overly so)
- ghost (evocative) (perhaps the best choice)
All these variants may be readily found on the internet; adding definitions of the verb included would not really be helpful in most cases.