Definitions
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A writing from which all words containing a particular letter are omitted, as the several books of the Odyssey of Tryphiodorus, in the first of which, it is said, there was no A, in the second no B, etc. Similarly, poems have been written in English avoiding the use of e, which is the most frequent of all English letters, while, on the other hand, pieces also have been written containing only one vowel, as e.
Wiktionary
- n. A word, or writing which omits a symbol or symbols.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A writing composed of words not having a certain letter or letters; -- as in the Odyssey of Tryphiodorus there was no A in the first book, no B in the second, and so on.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a text that excludes a particular letter or particular letters of the alphabet
Etymologies
- Back-formation from lipogrammatos, "wanting an uncial". (Wiktionary)
Examples
“For Joshua Cohen's own version of a "lipogram," a work with a missing symbol, Benjamin Israelien's void after another, now total, global decimation of the Chosen People erodes him from the inside out.”
“It's the hardest kind of lipogram, as it doesn't contain the letter E - the most common letter in the English language.”
“A difficult task to construct a lipogram – such a short scrap was a taxing duty.”
“The song reminds me of constrained writing like a lipogram or a Yngwie Malmsteen solo: technically proficient but not a lot of fun.”
Stephen Belatedly Gets Into Transformative Remixes | Live Granades
“Eunoia Coach House Books, 2002, a lipogram that uses only one vowel in each of its five chapters was awarded the Griffin Poetry Prize in 2002.”
“Inspired by the rulebound literature of Oulipo (the French coterie of poets), Eunoia consists of a univocal lipogram—a story written in five chapters, each of which uses only one vowel exclusively (the first chapter using only A, the second chapter using only E, etc.)”
“And for anyone planning on asking what a lipogram or liponym is, I present to you this post, by felisdemens.”
“He didn't get the point of it and maybe the only thing worse was a lipogram.”
“What you've just read is a lipogram - a text written without using a particular letter of the alphabet.”
“The days of Perec and the experimental coterie Oulipo may seem distant, but Christian Bök has revived their spirit in his 'univocal lipogram”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘lipogram’.
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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phrontistery - l
from phrontistery.info
lacis, laches, labret, labile, lability, labarum, labefactation, labeorphily, lux, luff, lour, limn and 496 more...
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juv3nal's Words
ligature, hermeneutic, caduceus, prelapsarian, apophenia, pataphor, lipogram, epinephrine, ludic, samizdat, oulipo, oulipopo and 194 more...
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known words
words wot i already knew
antisyzygy, calenture, shill, saudade, sehnsucht, squonk, steganographic, anomie, wiggy, grok, hermeneutics, agrise and 206 more...
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ktrey's wordlist
Words that I like.
Many may be lexicographically impotent due to a lack of citations and definition. Hopefully I'll be able to rectify this eventually.velleity, dispositive, bloviate, bibulous, fungible, concupiscence, avuncular, carnaptious, thrawn, hypocoristic, diegesis, lagniappe and 928 more...
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Just 'cause I like 'em, L
lisle, lahar, loupe, labret, latten, luster, lagomorph, lamentation, limicole, lunge, lobtail, latifolious and 182 more...
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AbraxasZugzwang's Words
atavism, abraxas, sisyphean, frust, fetus-in-fetu, arhythmically, queef, epidemiology, abecedarian, troglodyte, chiaroscuro, philology and 631 more...
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anotherfailedattempt's Words
kakistocracy, conflagration, pollyanna, equanimity, punctillious, obstreperous, ribald, belligerent, truculent, verbose, lachrymose, onanism and 278 more...
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wordplay terms
affix-clipping, alternade, alternating termi..., backswitch, balanced letter sum, beheadment, binade, capitonyms, catoptron, changeover, changing offset s..., charade and 96 more...
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learning
A list of words whose meanings I am learning, either because a) I don't know the meaning b) I know the meaning, but could stand to better appreciate certain inflections or secondary meanings or c) ...
louche, educe, loam, cob, sclerotic, palliate, axial, syndicalist, ecumenical, sally, fatuous, parvenu and 1381 more...
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2008 Wordlist
Hopefully, I'll be using this site for more than one year. It will be fun then to look back and see what new words I found worthy of notice in any given year.
All words spotted in 2008...longanimity, permalancer, breeder, biodegradable, handicapable, gender-neutral, translator, interpreter, translation, interpreting, kleptocracy, fanfiction and 1598 more...
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Words about words
Most of these describe word patterns or relationships between words.
panvocalic, palindrome, anagram, transposition, antigram, reversal, isogram, alternade, trinade, beheadment, decapitation, apheresis and 149 more...
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persnickety parlance
behoove, ebullient, insouciant, insipient, froth, quandary, quixotic, tendril, maktub, furrow, furl, anastrophe and 1076 more...
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The Mystery Guest
berth, sartorial, panache, epistle, machinations, potlatch, chicanery, indigence, apprised, medias res, lipogram, souciant and 6 more...
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Fun with words
Pangram, paronomasia, lipogram, Antanaclasis, Syllepsis, mondegreen, mishy-phen, snowclone, anagram, palindrome, alliterative
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linguistics
holophrasis, polyglot, interrobang, echolalia, glossolalia, alogia, malapropism, sesquipedalian, hapax legomenon, portmanteau, tautology, epigram and 79 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for lipogram.

garyth123 See eunoia quotes. Feb 14, 2009
bilby "That was just grand, John, but I was thinking along a path varying a bit from that. You know that Man’s brain is actually all of him. All parts of his body, as you follow down from his brain, act simply as aids to it. His nostrils bring him air; his mouth is for masticating his food; his hands and limbs furnish ability for manipulation and locomotion; and his lungs, stomach and all inward organs function only for that brain. If you look at a crowd you say that you saw lots of folks: but if you look at a man bathing in a pond; and if that man sank until only that part from his brow upward was in sight, you might say that you saw nobody; only a man s scalp. But you actually saw a man, for a man is only as big as that part still in sight. Now a child’s skull, naturally, is not so big as a man’s; so its brain has no room for all that vast mass of thoughts which adult brains contain. It is, so to say, in a small room. But, as days and months go by, that room will push its walls outward, and that young brain gradually fill up all that additional room. So, looking for calm, cool thinking in a child is as silly as looking for big, juicy plums amongst frail spring blossoms. Why, oh, why don’t folks think of that? You know what foolish sounding things Julius was always asking, as a child. ‘How can just rubbing a match light it?’ ‘Why is it dark at night?’ ‘Why can’t a baby talk?’ But, you and I, John, didn’t laugh at him. No, not for an instant. And now look at our Julius and our Kathlyn; both famous, just through all that asking; and our aid. John, God could put Man into this world, full-grown. But God don’t do so; for God knows that, without a tiny hand to hold, a tiny foot to pat, tiny lips to kiss, and a tiny, warm, wriggling body to hug, Man would know nothing but work.�?
- Ernest Wright, 'Gadsby'. Feb 14, 2009
oroboros Gorgs Prc? ;oP May 23, 2008
mollusque How did Georges state the authorship of said book? May 23, 2008
oroboros A phrase that is missing certain letters: e.g., "By hook or by crook." has no 'e's. Georges Perec,wrote an entire book, La Disparition, without using any 'e's...along with a number of other unique works.
Also see plagiarism by anticipation. May 23, 2008
bilby See lipogrammatic. Dec 19, 2007