Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Brevity of speech; conciseness.
- noun A shortened or condensed phrase or expression.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun In rhetoric and grammar, brevity of diction; a concise or abridged form of expression; especially, non-repetition or omission of a word when its repetition or use would be necessary to complete the grammatical construction: as, I do not think so now, but I have (thought so); this is as good (as) or better than that.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Rhet.) Conciseness of expression; brevity.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun
concise speech ;laconism - noun rhetoric Any of several forms of omission of words, including the omission of an understood part of a phrase, as, the omission of "good" from "(good) morning!" (
brachyology ).
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
[Medieval Latin brachylogia, from Greek brakhulogiā : brakhu-, brachy- + logos, speech; see –logy.]
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
From brachy- + -logy, from Ancient Greek βραχυλογία, from βραχύς ("short") + λογία ("speech"); compare brachyology.
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Examples
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A similar brachylogy at _EP_ I iv 31 'iunctior Haemonia est _Ponto_ quam Roma
The Last Poems of Ovid 43 BC-18? Ovid
mialuthien commented on the word brachylogy
Asyndeton and zeugma are types of brachylogy. Ellipse is used synonymously.
July 23, 2008
ruzuzu commented on the word brachylogy
So that's what it's called.
April 21, 2011
jmjarmstrong commented on the word brachylogy
JM – brachylogy.
April 25, 2011