elision

American  

[ih-lizh-uhn] / ɪˈlɪʒ ən /

noun

• elisions
  plural

1. the omission of a vowel, consonant, or syllable in pronunciation.

2. (in verse) the omission of a vowel at the end of one word when the next word begins with a vowel, as th'angel.

3. an act or instance of eliding or omitting anything.

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elision British  

/ ɪˈlɪʒən /

noun

1. the omission of a syllable or vowel at the beginning or end of a word, esp when a word ending with a vowel is next to one beginning with a vowel

2. any omission of a part or parts

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• elisions
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of elision

First recorded in 1575–85; from Latin ēlīsiōn- (stem of ēlīsiō ) a striking out, equivalent to ēlīs ( us ) (past participle of ēlīdere; see elide) + -iōn- -ion

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Explanation

Leaving something out is an elision. If the movie version of your favorite book leaves out the most exciting plot line, it's because the director made an elision. Elision has its roots in the Latin word elidere, which means "to crush out." A government censor who blacks out the names of people or places in a document is making an elision, and so is an editor who removes passages from an article to make it shorter or clearer. The editor probably thinks of the elision as a clean, businesslike cut, but the writer might indeed feel crushed.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

elision elisions

But even storytellers of a more prosaic bent could learn something from Jackson’s gift for narrative elision and economy, her insistence on the primacy of the visual and her sparing use of music.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 2, 2023

The May 11 KidsPost article “How to be daring on Eat What You Want Day” contained an amazing elision.

From Washington Post ● May 20, 2022

Strange too the elision of the questions Roth asked of himself, or rather, put in the mouth of his character Zuckerman in his autobiography “Facts.”

From New York Times ● Mar. 29, 2021

The elision of Shelby’s private life is a sleight of hand that obscures, above all, the complexity of life—it suggests a sheer unwillingness to contend with facts that don’t easily fit into a sentimental schema.

From The New Yorker ● Nov. 19, 2019

This rather deliberate elision of Fermi’s role in neutron research was the prelude to a pitch for $2,250 “to increase the yield of neutron radiation tenfold or more.”

From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik

It’s frank, intimate, poetic in its elisions and profoundly haunting in its effect.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 26, 2026

But especially as the book progresses, the authors slip into cursory rewrites of well-known history and other elisions that, while sometimes small, nevertheless undermine their credibility.

From Washington Post ● Mar. 10, 2023

Brod’s many elisions, Saul Friedlander wrote in his 2013 biography of Kafka, were responsible for “leading an entire generation of commentators astray.”

From New York Times ● Jan. 11, 2023

What are the contradictions and elisions that emerge?

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 8, 2022

When Cousin Giles was excited he made elisions of speech rather unusual for a Boston man.

From A Little Girl in Old Salem by Amanda Minnie Douglas

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