elliptical
Americanadjective
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pertaining to or having the form of an ellipse.
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pertaining to or marked by grammatical ellipsis.
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(of speech or writing) expressed with extreme or excessive economy; relieved of irrelevant matter.
to converse in elliptical sentences.
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(of a style of speaking or writing) tending to be ambiguous, cryptic, or obscure.
an elliptical prose that is difficult to translate.
noun
adjective
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relating to or having the shape of an ellipse
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relating to or resulting from ellipsis
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very condensed or concise, often so as to be obscure or ambiguous
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circumlocutory or long-winded
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Usage
The use of elliptical to mean circumlocutory should be avoided as it may be interpreted wrongly as meaning condensed or concise
Other Word Forms
- elliptically adverb
- ellipticalness noun
- nonelliptic adjective
- nonelliptical adjective
- nonelliptically adverb
- overelliptical adjective
- overelliptically adverb
- subelliptic adjective
- subelliptical adjective
- unelliptical adjective
Etymology
Origin of elliptical
1650–60; < Greek elleiptik ( ós ) defective ( ellipsis, -tic ) + -al 1
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.
Supermoon's occur because the Moon's orbit around Earth is not perfectly circular, but slightly elliptical - meaning it is sometimes closer to us than at other times.
From BBC
The Moon does not orbit the earth in a perfect circle but has more of an egg-shaped, elliptical orbit.
From BBC
More than 100 of Cheever’s stories appeared in the New Yorker from the 1940s into the 1980s, making him a sort of ambassador for that magazine’s brand of polished, elliptical fiction.
The Moon's orbit around the Earth is not circular but elliptical, meaning that the distance between the two varies throughout the year.
From BBC
The Moon has an elliptical orbit and when it is at its closest point to the Earth we say that it is in perigee.
From BBC
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.
