ellipsis

English

Examples (grammar)
He is faster than she. (Here, a trailing “is fast” is omitted, grammatically required, and implied.) She went home, so I did, too. (Did stands for “went home”.)

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from Latin ellipsis, from Ancient Greek ἔλλειψις (élleipsis, “omission”). Doublet of ellipse.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɪˈlɪpsɪs/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

Noun

ellipsis (countable and uncountable, plural ellipses)

1. (typography, mathematics) A mark consisting of (in English) three periods, historically or more formally with spaces in between, before, and after them, " . . . ", or, more recently, a single character, "…", used to indicate that words have been omitted in a text or that they are missing or illegible, or (in mathematics) that a pattern continues (e.g., 1, ..., 4 means 1, 2, 3, 4).

   Synonyms: (colloquial) dot dot dot, suspension dots, suspension points

   • 2006, Danielle Corsetto, Girls with Slingshots: 114

     CARD: Hey Baby. Thanks for the … last night. Love you!

     HAZEL: Wow. I've never despised an ellipsis so much in my life.

3. (grammar, rhetoric) The omission of a word or phrase that can be inferred from the context.
4. (film) The omission of scenes in a film that do not advance the plot.
   • 2002, David Blanke, The 1910s: 219

     It was now possible for writers and directors to cut scenes that did not further the plot; called "ellipses" by filmmakers.

5. (obsolete, geometry) An ellipse.

Derived terms

• vertical ellipsis

Related terms

• elliptical
• elliptically

Translations

typographic mark

• Arabic: حَذْف‎ m (ḥaḏf), إِضْمَار‎ m (ʔiḍmār)
• Belarusian: шматкро́п'е n (šmatkrópʺje), кро́пкі f pl (krópki)
• Bulgarian: многото́чие n (mnogotóčie)
• Burmese: ပေယျာလ (my) (peyyala.), စာချန်မှတ် (my) (cahkyanhmat)
• Catalan: punts suspensius m pl
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: ……, 刪節號／删节号 (zh) (shānjiéhào), 省略號／省略号 (zh) (shěnglüèhào)

• Czech: trojtečka f
• Danish: ellipse c
• Dutch: beletselteken (nl) n, doorlooppuntjes pl, ellips (nl) f
• Esperanto: tripunkto
• Estonian: punkt punkt punkt, kolm punkti
• Finnish: ellipsi (fi), kolme pistettä (fi)
• French: points de suspension (fr) m
• German: Auslassungspunkte (de) m pl
• Greek: αποσιωπητικά (el) n pl (aposiopitiká)
• Hungarian: három pont, hárompont-jel, hármaspont
• Icelandic: úrfellingarmerki n
• Irish: comhartha focalbhá m
• Italian: puntini puntini puntini
• Japanese: … (ja), …… (ja), 省略記号 (しょうりゃくきごう, shōryaku kigō), 省略 (ja) (しょうりゃく, shōryaku), リーダー (ja) (rīdā)
• Kalmyk: олн цег (oln tseg)
• Kazakh: көп нүкте (köp nükte)
• Korean: 줄임표 (jurimpyo)
• Latvian: daudzpunkte f
• Lithuanian: daugtaškis (lt) m
• Macedonian: неколку точки pl (nekolku točki), три точки f pl (tri točki)
• Mongolian: цуваа цэг (cuvaa ceg)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: ellipse (no) m

  Nynorsk: ellipse m

• Persian: سه‌نقطه‎ (se-noqte)
• Polish: wielokropek (pl) m
• Portuguese: reticências (pt) f pl, pontos de reticência (pt) m pl, três pontos m pl
• Romanian: puncte de suspensie (ro) n pl
• Russian: многото́чие (ru) n (mnogotóčije), троето́чие (ru) n (trojetóčije)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Roman: trotočka (sh) f, trotočje n

• Slovak: tri bodky f pl
• Slovene: tripičje n
• Spanish: puntos suspensivos (es) m pl
• Thai: จุดไข่ปลา (th) (jùt-kài-bplaa)
• Ukrainian: крапки́ f pl (krapký)
• Uyghur: كۆپ چېكىت‎ (köp chëkit)
• Vietnamese: dấu ba chấm (vi) (𧿫𠀧點)
• Welsh: atalnodau llawn m pl

omission of word or phrase

• Breton: berrdro (br) f
• Bulgarian: пропускане на дума n (propuskane na duma)
• Catalan: el·lipsi (ca) f
• Czech: výpustka f
• Danish: ellipse c, udeladelse c
• Dutch: ellips (nl) f, weglating (nl) f
• Estonian: väljajätt, ellips
• Finnish: sananheitto (fi), ellipsi (fi)
• French: ellipse (fr) f
• German: Ellipse (de) f
• Greek: έλλειψη (el) f (élleipsi)
• Hungarian: szó vagy mondatrész kihagyása/elhagyása, szóelhagyás, ellipszis (hu), (as a way of forming a new lexeme) jelentéstapadás
• Irish: focalbhá m
• Italian: ellissi (it) f
• Macedonian: испуштање n (ispuštanje)
• Maori: kupu mahue
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: ellipse (no) m

  Nynorsk: ellipse m

• Polish: wyrzutnia (pl) f, elipsa (pl) f
• Portuguese: elipse (pt) f
• Romanian: elipsă (ro) f
• Russian: опуще́ние (ru) n (opuščénije), э́ллипсис (ru) m (éllipsis)
• Spanish: elipsis (es) f

See also

Punctuation

• apostrophe ( ' ) ( ’ )
• curly brackets or braces (US) ( { } )
• square brackets or brackets (US) ( [ ] )
• colon ( : )
• comma ( , )
• dashes ( ‒ ) ( – ) ( — ) ( ― )
• ellipsis ( … )
• exclamation mark ( ! )
• fraction slash ( ⁄ )
• guillemets ( « » ) ( ‹ › )
• hyphen ( - ) ( ‐ )
• interpunct ( · )
• interrobang (rare) ( ‽ )
• brackets or parentheses (US, Canada) ( ( ) )
• full stop or period (US, Canada) ( . )
• question mark ( ? )
• quotation marks (formal) ( ‘ ’ ‚ ) ( “ ” „ )
• quotation marks (informal, computing) ( " ) ( ' )
• semicolon ( ; )
• slash or stroke (UK) ( / )
• space ( ] [ )

Latin

Etymology

From Ancient Greek ἔλλειψις (élleipsis, “omission”).

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /elˈliːp.sis/, [ɛlˈlʲiːps̠ɪs̠]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /elˈlip.sis/, [elˈlipsis]

Noun

ellīpsis f (genitive ellīpsis); third declension

1. ellipsis
2. ellipse
   • 1644, René Descartes, Principia philosophiae

     Unde sequitur ambitum ABCD non esse circulum perfectum, sed magis ad ellipsis figuram accedere

Declension

Third-declension noun (i-stem).

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	ellīpsis	ellīpsēs
Genitive	ellīpsis	ellīpsium
Dative	ellīpsī	ellīpsibus
Accusative	ellīpsin ellīpsim	ellīpsēs ellīpsīs
Ablative	ellīpsī	ellīpsibus
Vocative	ellīpsis	ellīpsēs

Descendants

• → Catalan: el·lipse, el·lipsi
• → English: ellipsis
• → French: ellipse
• → Italian: ellissi, ellisse

References

• “ellipsis”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• ellipsis in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette