etymology - "Disappear" as a transitive verb


I hear it more on more frequently on the news, as in:



The North-Korean regime has disappeared scores of dissidents over the past twenty years.



Has disappear always been used in such a way, as a transitive verb? If not, can early instances be traced back to some period?



Answer



OED shows that disappear has been used as a transitive verb for a surprisingly long time:



3. trans. To cause to disappear.
1897 Chem. News 19 Mar. 143 : We progressively disappear the faces of the dodecahedron.



However its euphemistic use is a bit more recent, and specifically relates to the rule of the Argentine military junta in the late 1970s.



b. trans. euphem. To abduct or arrest (a person), esp. for political reasons, and subsequently to kill or detain as a prisoner, without making his or her fate known.Freq. with reference to Latin America.
[Originally and chiefly after American Spanish desaparecido n.]
1979 N.Y. Times Mag. 21 Oct. 66 While Miss Iglesias ‘was disappeared’, her family's writ of habeus corpus‡, filed on her behalf, was rejected by the courts.


desaparecido
Any of the many people who disappeared in Argentina during the period of military rule between 1976 and 1983, presumed killed by members of the armed services or of the police. Usu. in pl.
1977 Time 11 Apr. 45/3 Amnesty International...accused the military of arbitrary detention, torture, summary executions and the ‘disappearance’ of at least 500 suspects... Amnesty charges that many of the desaparecidos were innocent citizens abducted and murdered by soldiers and police in mufti.



‡ OED really does quote habeus corpus, but it doesn't add "sic" so I don't know where the mistake lies.


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