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:
If he could elide and overlook his past disasters, the city would follow the same path—right?
From Slate ● Nov. 4, 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
The director’s “inspired idea of showing the very thing that most movies either ignore or awkwardly elide — the passage of time — is its impressive, headline-making conceit,” she added.
From New York Times ● Feb. 13, 2023
One could of course adopt the term ‘progressivist’, but that would elide all the difficulties that are associated with the idea of progress.
From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton
But she elides the evidence that college-educated fathers spend far more time with their children than men did a generation ago.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 11, 2025
On an even darker note, a dad uses his Google Pixel’s A.I. feature to talk about the joys of raising children, and somehow the severe dystopian motifs of this premise completely elides the company.
From Slate ● Feb. 10, 2025
The Kingdom of Hawaii was illegally overthrown in 1893 with the aid of the U.S. armed forces and the islands became a state in 1959 — a one-sentence history that elides generations of further losses.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 28, 2023
Kushner, of course, conveniently elides the fact that this unusual access was primarily the inevitable result of his marriage to the president’s daughter.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 26, 2022
I don’t know how much time has passed when the thumping stops and the tray elides back.
From "Insurgent" by Veronica Roth
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
He evaded questions and elided answers, and showed all the grace and gratitude of a kindergartner who pees in a sandbox and expects others to clean up the mess.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 3, 2024
Occasionally, when Durand looked up from his absorption, they exchanged a few swift remarks, elided, compressed, telegraphic; for they understood each other so well that the unabridged form of speech was no longer necessary.
From The Westerners by Stewart Edward White
For a memoirist, Mr. Lemann remains ambivalent about self-revelation, eliding his professional accomplishments and any emotional upheavals along the way.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 26, 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
Instead of fudging or eliding the vertical joins, he emphasized them, creating multi-paneled photographs where figures or parts of figures are visibly duplicated.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 25, 2023
The organization’s current incarnation, after a fraud investigation, as I Ching Systems and Artworks, invites contemplation as an aesthetic practice, even as its intent is less art world aspiration than eliding F.D.A. scrutiny.
From New York Times ● Feb. 1, 2023
But surely I shall admit the vulgarity of slurring or altogether eliding certain terminal consonants?
From The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell by James Russell Lowell
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
