Apostrophe
/əˈpɒstrəfi/noun
The raised mark showing an omitted letter or possession; also the rhetorical move of breaking off to address someone absent.
The Greek roots
Literally: “a turning away”
The story of the word
One Greek word covers two things that look unrelated. In rhetoric, apostrophḗ is the speaker turning away from the audience to address a dead friend or an absent enemy. In print it comes from the full phrase hē apóstrophos prosōidía, the mark of turning away, flagging the letter that has turned out of the word. Strophḗ also gives catastrophe, a turning down, and the strophe of a chorus, named for the direction they walked across the stage.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Late Latin → French → English
- First recorded
- 16th century
Same family
In a sentence
The greengrocer's apostrophe has survived every campaign against it.
In the fourth stanza he turns to apostrophe and addresses the river directly.