1. A meeting of people to receive spiritualistic messages.
2. A meeting, session, or sitting, as of a learned or legislative body.

[French, a sitting, from Old French seoir, to sit, from Latin sedēre.]

WORD HISTORY   The origins of séance are surprisingly mundane, given the mysterious atmosphere associated with the word. It comes from French séance, "seat, session," from Old French seoir, "to sit." In French as in English the word came to be used specifically for a meeting of people to receive spiritualistic messages (a sense first recorded in English in 1845), but earlier in French and English the word had been used for meetings more generally. One can, after all, do many things while seated. Certainly the second recorded use of the word in English in 1803 does not promise the frisson of an encounter with the spirit world: "your séances . . . which I have a shrewd suspicion must be something dull." Perhaps the writer was referring to the meetings of a legislature or learned society, which sometimes put attendees to sleep rather than into a trance.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.