noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   An omission of words needed to fully express the sense of a phrase. countable, obsolete, uncountable
2. 2
   omission or suppression of parts of words or sentences wordnet
3. 3
   A line or dash used to show that text has been omitted. countable, uncountable
4. 4
   A mutation of the initial sound of a word by which voiceless sounds become voiced, voiced stops become nasal consonants, and vowels acquire a prothetic nasal consonant: see Appendix:Irish mutations#Eclipsis. Irish, countable, uncountable

Synonyms

All synonyms

ellipsisellipsisnasalizationnasalization

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Ancient Greek ἔκλειψις (ékleipsis, “disappearance, abandoning”). Doublet of eclipse.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.