Words & WritingGreek → English
Ellipsis
/ɪˈlɪpsɪs/noun
The omission of words that a reader can supply from context, or the three dots marking that omission.
The Greek roots
ἐν
en
in
λείπειν
leípein
to leave, leave behind
Literally: “a falling short”
The story of the word
Greek ἔλλειψις meant a deficit, something coming up short. Apollonius of Perga used it for the conic section whose cone-angle falls short of the parallel case, which is why the oval and the missing words share a name. English borrowed the grammatical sense in the 1560s; the row of dots on the page only picked up the label in the nineteenth century, long after printers had been using it.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 1560s
Same family
ellipseeclipseelliptical
In a sentence
The sentence works by ellipsis: she ordered coffee, he tea.
He trailed off into an ellipsis and let the sentence hang.