Explore Ellipsis through 10+ example sentences from English, with an explanation of the meaning and related words like omission or deletion. Ideal for language learners, writers and word enthusiasts.
Ellipsis in a sentence
Ellipsis meaning
- A mark consisting of multiple full stops (with or without spaces), used to indicate omitted, missing, or illegible words; or (in mathematics) that a pattern continues.
- The omission of a word or phrase that can be inferred from the context.
- The omission of scenes in a film that do not advance the plot.
Using Ellipsis
- The main meaning on this page is: A mark consisting of multiple full stops (with or without spaces), used to indicate omitted, missing, or illegible words; or (in mathematics) that a pattern continues. | The omission of a word or phrase that can be inferred from the context. | The omission of scenes in a film that do not advance the plot.
- Useful related words include: eclipsis, omission, deletion.
- In the example corpus, ellipsis often appears in combinations such as: an ellipsis, the ellipsis, ellipsis is.
Context around Ellipsis
- Average sentence length in these examples: 21.7 words
- Position in the sentence: 6 start, 9 middle, 5 end
- Sentence types: 20 statements, 0 questions, 0 exclamations
Corpus analysis for Ellipsis
- In this selection, "ellipsis" usually appears in the middle of the sentence. The average example has 21.7 words, and this corpus slice is mostly made up of statements.
- Around the word, chicago, prefabricated, atmosphere, character, consists and replaces stand out and add context to how "ellipsis" is used.
- Recognizable usage signals include abbreviations and ellipsis marks omitted and an ellipsis character after. That gives this page its own corpus information beyond isolated example sentences.
- By corpus frequency, "ellipsis" sits close to words such as aar, abdulla and abimbola, which helps place it inside the broader word index.
Example types with ellipsis
The same corpus examples are grouped by length and sentence type, making it easier to see the contexts in which the word appears:
Omitted moves are indicated with an ellipsis (. (7 words)
Instead of listing every single element, sometimes an ellipsis (". (9 words)
Note that brackets clarify abbreviations and ellipsis marks omitted usage examples. (11 words)
In most contexts, the Chicago ellipsis is much too wide"—he recommends using flush dots, or thin-spaced dots (up to one-fifth of an em ), or the prefabricated ellipsis character ( Unicode U+2026, Latin entity hellip; ). (37 words)
In different languages In English The Chicago Manual of Style suggests the use of an ellipsis for any omitted word, phrase, line, or paragraph from within but not at the end of a quoted passage. (35 words)
Bringhurst suggests that normally an ellipsis should be spaced fore-and-aft to separate it from the text, but when it combines with other punctuation, the leading space disappears and the other punctuation follows. (34 words)
Example sentences (20)
In most contexts, the Chicago ellipsis is much too wide"—he recommends using flush dots, or thin-spaced dots (up to one-fifth of an em ), or the prefabricated ellipsis character ( Unicode U+2026, Latin entity hellip; ).
When an ellipsis replaces a fragment omitted from a quotation, the ellipsis is enclosed in parentheses or square brackets.
Go to the site, click the ellipsis menu, and hover over Install this site as an app to load ChatGPT from your desktop.
When you’re drunk you want a melody you can sing, and a story you can follow; when you’re high you want atmosphere, ellipsis.
An ellipsis character after a status message signifies that an operation is in progress and may take some time, as in "Downloading updates…".
Bringhurst suggests that normally an ellipsis should be spaced fore-and-aft to separate it from the text, but when it combines with other punctuation, the leading space disappears and the other punctuation follows.
In computational linguistics, one of the most influential theories of ellipsis is that ellipses are represented by free variables whose values are then determined using Higher-Order Unification (HOU).
In different languages In English The Chicago Manual of Style suggests the use of an ellipsis for any omitted word, phrase, line, or paragraph from within but not at the end of a quoted passage.
In French typography, the ellipsis is written close up to the preceding word but has a space after it.
In Japanese The most common character corresponding to an ellipsis is called 3-ten rīdā ("3-dot leaders", … main). 2-ten rīdā exists as a character, but it is used less commonly.
In mathematical notation An ellipsis is also often used in mathematics to mean "and so forth".
In reported speech, the ellipsis can be used to represent an intentional silence.
Instead of listing every single element, sometimes an ellipsis (".
In the TeX typesetting system, the following types of ellipsis are available: In LaTeX with the amsmath package from AMS-Latex more specific ellipses are provided for math mode.
In this case, however, the ellipsis consists not of dots but of short dashes.
In writing, the ellipsis consists usually of six dots (two 3-ten rīdā characters, …… main).
It is not unheard of to see inanimate objects "speaking" the ellipsis.
Notes to the listings In the road listings below, a dash ('–') indicates a land road connection between two towns/cities—the normal case—while an ellipsis ('…') denotes a stretch across water.
Note that brackets clarify abbreviations and ellipsis marks omitted usage examples.
Omitted moves are indicated with an ellipsis (.
Common combinations with ellipsis
These word pairs occur most frequently in English texts:
- an ellipsis 13×
- the ellipsis 9×
- ellipsis is 7×
- ellipsis character 3×
- ellipsis must 2×
- of ellipsis 2×
- ellipsis can 2×
- ellipsis consists 2×