Do you know what an ellipsis is? This article will provide you with all of the information you need on ellipsis, including its definition, usage, example sentences, and more!
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Kevin
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November 14, 2021
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Common Questions
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What is an ellipsis?
According to Grammar Monster, an ellipsis, also called ellipsis points, are a punctuation mark like a comma, question mark, full stop, quotation mark, exclamation point, colon, parentheses, exclamation mark, em dash, square brackets, semicolons, hyphens, and more. Style manuals and style guides like APA, MLA handbook, or the Chicago Manual of Style (AKA Chicago Style), Associated Press (AKA AP Stylebook or AP Style), and more advise using the ellipsis for omission, a pause, or a quote that may trail off. The placement can be used at the end of a sentence or the middle of a sentence, and is less common at the beginning of a sentence. An ellipsis looks like three dots. The ellipsis character is also used used in academic writing when omitting a whole section of an original quote. Here, it is placed in brackets. You should still retain the original meaning when eliminating a section of a quote. The ellipsis comes from the Greek elleipsis. These are used in narrative writing as well as academic writing, or on social media sites like Twitter or blogs.
What is an example of an ellipsis?
Ellipses can be used in many different contexts in the English language. Trying to use a word or grammatical technique in a sentence is one of the best ways to memorize what it is, but you can also try making flashcards or quizzes that test your knowledge. Try using this term of the day in a sentence today! Below are a couple of examples of ellipsis that can help get you started incorporating this tool into your everyday use. Take a look at these ellipsis examples from Your Dictionary and see how many you can identify the ellipsis in!
- “We have never finished Hamlet, Marianne; our dear Willoughby went away before we could get through it. We will put it by, that when he comes again…But it may be months, perhaps, before THAT happens.” – Sense and Sensibility
- “Did he … peacefully?” she asked. “Oh, quite peacefully, ma’am,” said Eliza. “You couldn’t tell when the breath went out of him. He had a beautiful death, God be praised.” “And everything … ?” – Dubliners
- “Hope” is a thing with feathers -/That perches in the soul -/And sings the tune without the words -/And never stops – at all -” – “Hope” Is a Thing With Feathers
- “… I was standing beside his bed and he was sitting up between the sheets, clad in his underwear, with a great portfolio in his hands.” – The Great Gatsby
- “I grow old … I grow old …/I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.” – The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
- “A fellowship, a professorship, he felt capable of anything and saw himself – but what was she looking at? At a man pasting a bill. The vast flapping sheet flattened itself out, and each shove of the brush revealed fresh legs, hoops, horses, glistening reds and blues, beautifully smooth, until half the wall was covered with the advertisement of a circus; a hundred horsemen, twenty performing seals, lions, tigers… Craning forwards, for she was short-sighted, she read it out… “will visit this town,” she read.” – To the Lighthouse
- “It means nothing to the message, but it might mean a good deal to us if we had no other means of discovering the sender. You see that he has begun by writing “The…game…is,” and so on.” – The Adventure of the Gloria Scott
- “Rest at pale evening . . ./A tall, slim tree . . ./Night coming tenderly/Black like me.” – Dream Variations
- “To the next abstinence: the next more easy; For use almost can change the stamp of nature, And either . . . the devil, or throw him out With wondrous potency. Once more, good night: And when you are desirous to be bless’d, I’ll blessing beg of you.” – Hamlet
- “”Well, Latimer, you thought me long,” my father said….” – The Lifted Veil
What are other literary techniques and devices?
There are many different literary and grammatical techniques and devices that you might see when you are reading prose or poetry. It is important to recognize these terms because they are always used for some purpose. Knowing these devices can help readers understand the author’s deeper meaning and why they are using such a device. Take a look at the below list of grammatical devices from OED and see how many you know! Then try researching ones that are unfamiliar to you.
- antecedent
- locative
- parenthetical | parenthetically
- second person
- pleonasm | pleonastic
- collocation | collocate
- demonstrative
- noun (n.)
- anagram
- infinitive
- quasi-
- declarative
- subjunctive
- prepositional phrase
- impersonal (impers.)
- past participle
- indirect speech
- morpheme
- direct speech
- head
- nominative
- indirect passive
- count noun
- reflexive
- present participle
- clause
- feminine
- imperative (imper.)
- phrase (phr.)
- subjective
- participial adjective
- intensifier
- finite
- bare infinitive
- non-finite
- proper noun | proper name
- third-person
- plural
- predicative
- postmodify | postmodifier
- non-referential
- to-infinitive
- copular verb | copula
- mood
- positive
- apposition
- masculine
- anaphoric
- concrete
- subordinate clause
- definite article
- gerund
- prepositional passive
- periphrasis | periphrastic
- premodify | premodifier
- prefix
- base form
- adjective
- protasis
- direct question
- similative
- ellipsis | elliptical
- inflection | inflected | inflectional
- nominal relative | nominal relative clause
- article
- instrumental
- dative
- apodosis and protasis
- interjection
- accusative
- special use
- main verb
- anticipatory
- prepositional object
- cataphoric
- direct object
- adverb (adv.)
- possessive pronoun
- part of speech
- vocative
- appositive
- causative
- person
- mass noun
- passive
- indirect object
- construed (const., constr.)
- element
- personal pronoun
- active
- double object
- singular
- absolute (absol.)
- object | direct object | indirect object
- adverbial | adverbially
- abstract
- verbal noun
- passive infinitive
- past tense
- complementary
- neuter
- stem
- genitive
- optative
- simple
- phrasal verb
- progressive
- sentence adverb |sentence adverbial
- comparative
- subject
- possessive adjective
- conjunction (conj.)
- common noun
- verb (v.)
- objective
- compound | compounding
- participle | past participle | present participle
- tense
- zero
- combining form (comb. form)
- agree | agreement
- conditional
- unmarked genitive
- transitive
- gender
- cognate object
- pronoun (pron.)
- indefinite
- indirect question
- modify | modifier
- collective noun
- relative
- determiner
- intransitive
- complement
- parasynthetic
- present tense
- case
- auxiliary verb | auxiliary
- first person
- pro-form
- combination
- dual
- indicative
- that-clause
- possessive
- agent noun
- preposition (prep.)
- attributive
- modal verb | modal auxiliary verb | modal auxiliary
- noun phrase
- main clause
- construction
- filler
- number
- interrogative
- perfect
- superlative
Overall, one can use ellipses to show omitted text of original text from a quote, show a pause or trailing off of dialogue in a complete sentence.
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