verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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elidesimple
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elidessimple
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have elidedperfect
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has elidedperfect
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am elidingprogressive
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are elidingprogressive
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is elidingprogressive
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have been elidingperfect progressive
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has been elidingperfect progressive
Past
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elidedsimple
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had elidedperfect
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was elidingprogressive
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were elidingprogressive
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had been elidingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of elide
First recorded in 1530–50; from Latin ēlīdere “to strike out,” equivalent to ē- “out, out of; away” + -līdere, combining form of laedere “to wound”; see e- 1
Explanation
To elide something is to omit it or get rid of it. If your parents are especially strict, you might tell them about the A you got on your English essay and elide the fact that you failed your math quiz. If your school is putting on a production of "Grease" and the director cuts a major scene from the play, you can say she elides it. And when an elected official gives a speech, he's almost sure to elide certain topics that are too controversial or negative. Elide is also used in grammar to describe the way people speak when they leave out certain sounds. It comes from the Latin elidere, "strike out or force out."
Vocabulary lists containing elide
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Their posture of complaint allows them to elide some pretty serious differences.
From Slate ● Jan. 5, 2025
But this kind of ludicrous fantasy allows Hegseth to elide the deep paradox of his argument.
From Salon ● Nov. 14, 2024
Critics have concluded, absolutely correctly, that this provision serves to elide the manifold horrors of slavery by searching out its good side.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 25, 2023
These shows elide the logistical and cost concerns associated with telling a new story from scratch by falling back on a prefabricated narrative.
From New York Times ● May 25, 2022
In letters that were passionate and practical by turns, they did whatever they could to elide the miles between them.
From "The Woman All Spies Fear" by Amy Butler Greenfield
His letter elides the distinction between Covid vaccines for healthy children and medicines like Sarepta’s that treat debilitating and fatal diseases.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 3, 2025
This matter-of-fact description of how Dingell lost his gavel is Pelosi, and much of her book, in a nutshell, in how it elides the grisly details.
From Slate ● Aug. 19, 2024
By skipping over Nora’s teenage and early adult years, Song elides a lot of details and short-circuits a lot of potential immigrant-experience clichés.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 1, 2023
But it also elides an inconvenient truth about mainstream filmmaking that most screenwriters would prefer go un-emphasized, which is that their craft has always been a bastardized art form.
From Washington Post ● Feb. 17, 2023
To us, the sound of the horn elides from high frequencies to low.
From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan
Such abundance makes the job of a critic difficult: For every artist and presentation that gets singled out there are several others that are elided due to space constraints.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 27, 2026
"When a wrongful conviction occurs, it is, in the end, because they said so. All too often, the responsibility of judges for producing and maintaining wrongful convictions gets neglected, elided, and ignored."
From BBC ● Dec. 20, 2024
The announcement elided answers to any number of questions.
From Slate ● Nov. 16, 2024
What concerned us then was the way workers were being elided from history and their exploitation made to magically disappear.
From Salon ● Dec. 9, 2023
In the grammar and vocabulary the syllable which may be elided is enclosed in a bracket, and in compound words and phrases the elision is marked with an apostrophe, as in the preceding examples.
From The Mafulu Mountain People of British New Guinea by Robert Wood Williamson
Tadej Pogacar won nearly every bike race he entered, and he appeared to do it with ease, conquering rivals and Alpine ascents and eliding the perpetual danger of a perilous sport.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 30, 2026
He also dug up an archaic definition of “facility” from an old law dictionary, eliding key context that limited this idiosyncratic usage to railroads at the turn of the 20th century.
From Slate ● Jun. 26, 2023
“Self-taught” is also a euphemism, one eliding the structural reasons why an artist might have gone without formal education.
From New York Times ● Jul. 7, 2022
So when students, spotting Solomon’s wedding ring, asked for her husband’s name, she laughed it off with an eliding joke.
From Washington Post ● May 19, 2022
Milton restored the lost syllable, often eliding the final vowel, as in Exile, or ignominy, or bonds, or pain.
From Society for Pure English Tract 4 The Pronunciation of English Words Derived from the Latin by John Sargeaunt
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