appear to

appear to

1. To seem like. It appears to me that she isn't interested in this project, as she hasn't attended one meeting. I left early because it appeared to me that you weren't coming. It appears to be genuine, but we'll have to get an expert to examine it.
2. To become visible to someone. I'm telling you, the Virgin Mary appeared to me in a vision last night.
See also: appear
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

appear to someone (that...)

Fig. to seem to someone that... It appears to me that you are always late.
See also: appear

appear to someone

[for something] to make an appearance before someone. My late grandmother appeared to me in a dream.
See also: appear
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.
See also:
  • a change of heart
  • a mystery to (one)
  • a shoulder to cry on
  • a turn of phrase
  • able to do
  • able to do it
  • a tough cookie
  • a tough customer/cookie
  • a piece of the action
  • a piece/slice of the action
References in classic literature
If we have a large range of examples, if our observation is constantly directed to seeking the correlation of cause and effect in people's actions, their actions appear to us more under compulsion and less free the more correctly we connect the effects with the causes.
Therefore it is unnecessary for a prince to have all the good qualities I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to have them.
For this reason a prince ought to take care that he never lets anything slip from his lips that is not replete with the above-named five qualities, that he may appear to him who sees and hears him altogether merciful, faithful, humane, upright, and religious.
He with his eyes interrogated his mother more than twenty times: but she, given up to the pleasure of conversing with her sister-in-law, and likewise constrained by the glance of Mazarin, did not appear to comprehend any of the supplications conveyed by the looks of her son.
Neither did he appear to have pursued any course of reading which might fit him for a degree in science or any other recognized portal which would give him an entrance into the learned world.
"You appear to be astonished," he said, smiling at my expression of surprise.
So startling would his results appear to the uninitiated that until they learned the processes by which he had arrived at them they might well consider him as a necromancer.
The theories which I have expressed there, and which appear to you to be so chimerical are really extremely practical -- so practical that I depend upon them for my bread and cheese."
It began to appear to her mind as a dreary place of endless grinding.
On the whole they appear to me to stand some few degrees higher in the scale of civilization than the Fuegians.
The only light I can throw upon this enigma, is by remarking that banks of the most irregular forms appear to be now forming in some seas, as in parts of the West Indies and in the Red Sea, and that their sides are exceedingly steep.
He expected that he had only to appear to be acknowledged.
This, then, as the foundation, must be preserved: in other particulars carefully do and affect to seem like a king; first, appear to pay a great attention [1314b] to what belongs to the public; nor make such profuse presents as will offend the people; while they are to supply the money out of the hard labour of their own hands, and see it given in profusion to mistresses, foreigners, and fiddlers; keeping an exact account both of what you receive and pay; which is a practice some tyrants do actually follow, by which means they seem rather fathers of families than tyrants: nor need you ever fear the want of money while you have the supreme power of the state in your own hands.
Two years of continuous intentional efforts to embed inquiry and dialogue into their routines of daily engagement appear to stimulate an ability to balance the need for flow of daily routine with the intentional punctuating acts of observation, collection, meaning making, and sharing.
From where I sit, about 25% of today's buyers appear to be foreign with money from global sources.