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ELIDE (ih-LEYED)

Omit a sound or syllable when speaking

Common clues: Eliminate a syllable, perhaps; Slur over; Skip a syllable, e.g.; Omit in speech

Crossword puzzle frequency: 2 times a year

Elision is the omission of one or more sounds (such as a vowel, a consonant, or a whole syllable) in a word or phrase, producing a result that is easier for the speaker to pronounce. Sometimes, sounds may be elided for euphonic effect.


A word or phrase may be spelled the same as it is spoken in the script for a theatre play in order to show the actual speech of a character.

Elision is normally unintentional, but it may be deliberate. The result may be impressionistically described as "slurred" or "muted."

An example of deliberate elision occurs in Latin poetry as a stylistic device. Under certain circumstances, such as one word ending in a vowel and the following word beginning in a vowel, the words may be elided together. Elision was a common device in the works of Catullus. For example, the opening line of Catullus 3 is: Lugete, O Veneres Cupidinesque, but would be read as Lugeto Veneres Cupidinesque.

The elided form of a word or phrase may become a standard alternative for the full form, if used often enough. In English, this is called a contraction, such as can't from cannot. Contraction differs from elision in that contractions are set forms that have morphologized, but elisions are not.

A synonym for elision is syncope, though the latter term is most often associated with the elision of vowels between consonants (e.g., Latin tabula Spanish tabla). Another form of elision is aphesis, which means elision at the beginning of a word (generally of an unstressed vowel).

The opposite of elision is epenthesis, whereby sounds are inserted into a word to ease pronunciation.

Even though the effort that it takes to pronounce a word does not hold any influence in writing, a word or phrase may be spelled the same as it is spoken, for example, in poetry or in the script for a theatre play, in order to show the actual speech of a character. It may also be used in an attempt to transcribe non-standard speech. Also, some kinds of elision (as well as other phonological devices) are commonly used in poetry in order to preserve a particular rhythm.

In some languages employing the Latin alphabet, such as English, the omitted letters in a contraction are replaced by an apostrophe. Greek, which uses its own alphabet, marks elision in the same way.

 

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Elision".