Word.ws English Dictionary

seance

/ˈseɪˌɑns/

seance is the alternative spelling of séance.

Meaning of séance

Noun

séance (plural séances)

  1. A ceremony where people try to communicate with the spirits of dead people, usually led by a medium.
    • [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
  2. (dated) The sitting of an assembly to discuss a matter.

See all 3 meanings of séance

Forms of seance

Noun
pluralseances
Verb
third-person singular presentseances
present participleseancing
past participleseanced
pastseanced

Origin of seance

Borrowed from French séance.

Words that rhyme with seance

4 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about seance

What is seance the alternative spelling of?
Seance is the alternative spelling of séance.
How do you pronounce seance?
Seance is pronounced /ˈseɪˌɑns/ (US).

Words near seance in the dictionary

  1. Seamus
  2. seamy
  3. seamyrtle
  4. sean
  5. Seanad Éireann
  6. seance
  7. seanced
  8. seancer
  9. seancers
  10. seances
  11. seancing

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: seance (page history and authors); séance (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-seance.wav, En-us-séance.oga.

Cite this entry: “seance.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/seance. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.