Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • transitive verb To omit or slur over (a syllable, for example) in pronunciation.
  • transitive verb To strike out (something written).
  • transitive verb To eliminate or leave out of consideration.
  • transitive verb To cut short; abridge.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To break or dash in pieces; crush.
  • In grammar, to suppress or slur over the sound of in speech, or note the suppression of in writing: technically applied especially to the cutting off of a final vowel, as in “th' enemy,” but in a more general sense to that of a syllable or any part of a word. See elision, 1.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb obsolete To break or dash in pieces; to demolish.
  • transitive verb (Gram.) To cut off, as a vowel or a syllable, usually the final one; to subject to elision.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb To break or dash in pieces; to demolish.
  • verb To cut off, as a vowel or a syllable, usually the final one.
  • verb To distract from or evade (a question or line of argument)
  • verb To leave out or omit (something)

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb leave or strike out

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin ēlīdere, to strike out : ē-, ex-, ex- + laedere, to strike.]

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Examples

Comments

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  • one of the best words in english.

    December 6, 2006

  • "Dissimilar though their causes may have been, Orwell and Waugh were both anchored by “a hatred of moral relativism”; that, Lebedoff claims, is what set the two men apart from their contemporaries. Yet in stressing this similarity, the author elides a deeper difference."

    The New York Times, Two of a Kind, by Jim Holt, August 29, 2008

    August 31, 2008

  • What a superb thesis. The author is right; Orwell and Waugh were very much alike. Really if you read them both, you read England in the first half of the C20.

    August 31, 2008

  • But most also frame the solution as separation—a “dignified divorce,” as the writer Amos Oz put it. They elide demographic facts, or imminent dangers, that critics of two states reasonably believe, most ordinary people see, and extremists on both sides shrewdly traffic in—none of which would disappear if these same extremists were forced to the margins.

    http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/02/02/confederation-the-one-possible-israel-palestine-solution/

    February 9, 2018

  • How do I save a word to my own private list? Do I have private list?

    May 2, 2021

  • Hi rculver00! I just added a comment on your profile about making lists.

    May 2, 2021