apostrophe

EnglishEdit

WOTD – 13 February 2007

From French apostrophe, or Latin apostrophus, from Ancient Greek ἀπόστροφος (apóstrophos, “accent of elision”), a noun use of an adjective from ἀποστρέφω (apostréphō, “I turn away”), from ἀπό (apó, “away from”) + στρέφω (stréphō, “to turn”).

apostrophe (plural apostrophes)

(orthography) The text character ’, which serves as a punctuation mark in various languages and as a diacritical mark in certain rare contexts.

In English, the apostrophe is used to mark the possessive (e.g. “my friend’s wife”) or to show the omission of letters or numbers (e.g. “my friend’s angry”). See Category:English terms spelled with '.

the character ’

Albanian: apostrof (sq) m
Armenian: ապաթարց (hy) (apatʿarcʿ)
Asturian: apóstrofu m
Azerbaijani: apostrof
Belarusian: апо́страф m (apóstraf)
Bengali: ঊর্ধকমা (ūrdhôkma)
Bulgarian: апостроф (bg) m (apostrof)
Catalan: apòstrof m
Chinese:
Mandarin: 省略符號 (zh), 省略符号 (zh) (shěnglüè fúhào), 隔音符號, 隔音符号 (géyīn fúhào), 省字符 (shěngzìfú), 單引號, 单引号 (dānyǐnhào), 撇號 (zh), 撇号 (zh) (piěhào), 頓呼, 顿呼 (dùnhū)
Cornish: kollverk m, kollverkys m pl
Czech: apostrof (cs) m
Danish: apostrof c
Dutch: weglatingsteken (nl) n, apostrof (nl) f
Esperanto: apostrofo (eo)
Estonian: ülakoma (et)
Finnish: heittomerkki (fi)
French: apostrophe (fr) f
Galician: apóstrofo m
Georgian: აპოსტროფი (aṗosṭropi)
German: Apostroph (de) m, Hochkomma n
Greek: απόστροφος (el) f (apóstrofos)
Ancient: ἀπόστροφος f (apóstrophos)
Hungarian: aposztróf (hu), hiányjel (hu)
Icelandic: úrfellingarmerki n
Ido: apostrofo (io)
Ilocano: tuldek
Interlingua: apostropho
Interlingue: apostrof
Irish: uaschamóg f, apastróf f
Italian: apostrofo (it) m
Japanese: アポストロフィー (ja) (aposutorofī), アポストロフ (ja) (aposutorofu), 省略符号 (しょうりゃくふごう, shōryaku fugō)

Kazakh: апостроф (apostrof)
Korean: 아포스트로피 (aposeuteuropi)
Kyrgyz: апостроф (ky) (apostrof)
Latin: apostrophus f
Latvian: apostrofs m
Lithuanian: apostrofa m
Luxembourgish: Apostroph m
Macedonian: апостроф m (apostrof)
Manx: apostrophee
Maori: pakini
Norwegian:
Bokmål: apostrof m

Nynorsk: apostrof m
Persian: آپوستروف‎ (fa) (âpostrof)
Polish: apostrof (pl) m
Portuguese: apóstrofo (pt) m
Romanian: apostrof (ro) n
Russian: апо́стро́ф (ru) m (apóstróf)
Scottish Gaelic: ascair m, asgair m
Serbo-Croatian:
Cyrillic: а̀построф m, изо̀ставник m

Latin: àpostrof (sh) m, izòstavnik (sh) m
Slovak: apostrof m
Slovene: opuščaj (sl) m, apostrof (sl) m
Spanish: apóstrofo (es) m
Swedish: apostrof (sv)
Tagalog: kudlit
Tajik: апостроф (apostrof)
Thai: อะพอสทรอฟี (à-pɔ̂ɔs-trɔɔ-fii)
Ukrainian: апостроф (uk) m (apostrof)
Uzbek: apostrof (uz)
Vietnamese: dấu lược
Welsh: collnod m, sillgoll f

From Latin apostrophe, from Ancient Greek ἀποστροφή (apostrophḗ), from ἀποστρέφω (apostréphō, “I turn away”), from ἀπό (apó) + στρέφω (stréphō, “I turn”).

apostrophe (countable and uncountable, plural apostrophes)

(rhetoric) A sudden exclamatory piece of dialogue addressed to someone or something, especially absent.
- [1835, L[arret] Langley, A Manual of the Figures of Rhetoric, […], Doncaster: Printed by C. White, Baxter-Gate, OCLC 1062248511, page 28:
  Apostrophe a bold digression makes,
  Mov'd by some sudden thought the theme awakes.]

sudden piece of dialogue

From Latin apostrophus, from Ancient Greek ἀπόστροφος (apóstrophos, “accent of elision”), a noun use of an adjective from ἀποστρέφω (apostréphō, “I turn away”).