elliptical
/ɪˈlɪp.tɪ.kəl/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.21 in modern English
14
Scrabble Score
10
Letters
4
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
Of, or showing ellipsis; having a word or words omitted.
adj
adj
relating to or containing an instance of ellipsis.
noun
noun
Example Sentences
- "Having admitted that the projectile was describing an orbit around the moon, this orbit must necessarily be elliptical; science proves that it must be so."
- "If he is sometimes elliptical and obscure, it is because he has so much to tell us."
- "Browning's dark and elliptical mode of speech, like his love of the grotesque, was simply a characteristic of his, a trick of his temperament, and had little or nothing to do with whether what he was expressing was profound or superficial."
- "He was called a tramp; but that was only an elliptical way of saying that he was a philosopher, an artist, a traveller, a naturalist and a discoverer."
- "Elliptical processes capitalize on the redundancy of certain kinds of information in certain contexts, and permit an economy of expression by omitting the linguistic structures that would otherwise be required to express this information."
Etymology
From elliptic + -al, from Ancient Greek ἐλλειπτικός (elleiptikós), from ἐλλείπω (elleípō, “I leave out, omit”).
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ɪˈlɪp.tɪ.kəl/
- British English: /ɪˈlɪp.tɪk.əl/