ETYM Latin, from Greek elleipsis a leaving, defect, from elleipein to leave in, fall short; en in + leipein to leave. Related to In, and Loan, Ellipse.
Omission or suppression of parts of words or sentences; SYN. eclipsis.
(plural ellipses) Omission of one or more words in a sentence; a punctuation mark (.) to suggest this. Ellipsis of a relative that is common in English (“the song [that] she sang”), as is ellipsis of identical forms of be and have to avoid repetition (“the rabbits were fed and the horses [were] watered”). In punctuation, ellipsis indicates that a sentence has not been completed.
Intentional omission of grammatically necessary words.
1. (Grammaire) Retranchement d'un ou de plusieurs mots qui seraient nécessaires pour la régularité de la construction, mais que l'usage permet de supprimer. Ŕ la Saint Jean pour ŕ la fête de saint Jean.
2. (Géométrie) Lieu des points dont la somme des distances ŕ deux points fixes est constante.
A set of three dots (...) used to convey incompleteness. In many windowing applications, selection of a command that is followed by an ellipsis will produce a submenu or a dialog box. In programming and software manuals, an ellipsis in a syntax line indicates the repetition of certain elements. See also dialog box, syntax.