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Ellipsis

   Also found in: Dictionary/thesaurus, Medical, Wikipedia 0.01 sec.
ellipsis
A three-dot symbol used to show an incomplete statement. Ellipses are used in on-screen menus to convey that there is more to come.

Ellipses Are Used in Menus
The ellipsis after Picture Paths in this menu indicates that a dialog box will be displayed if selected.

Ellipsis 

the omission in speech or text of an implied linguistic unit. The dropped unit may be a sound or sound combination; usually this occurs in colloquial speech, for example, kada for kogda (“when”) or mozhbyt’ for mozhet byt’ (“maybe”).

A word or word combination may be omitted if it is clear from the context, such as U ottsa byl bol’shoi pis’mennyi stol, a u syna malen’kii (“The father had a large desk, and his son a small one”), or if it constitutes a familiar expression, such as Ty v liubom sluchae vyidesh’ sukhim (iz vody) (“You will manage to come out dry [from the water] in any case”).

The dropped unit may be suggested by the meaning or grammatical form of other words: Ty na rabotu (idesh’)? (“Are you [going] to work?”); (Ia) sizhu za reshetkoi v temnitse syroi . . . (“[I] am sitting behind the bars of a dank dungeon . . . .”—Pushkin). The dropped unit may be clear from the situation: Mne chernyi (kofe, khleb . . .) (“I’ll take black [coffee, bread . . .]”).

The ellipsis of a syntactic unit that has a double meaning may be strikingly expressive and is used as a figure of speech: Ia za svechku, svechka—vpechku (“I [grabbed for] the candle, but the candle [jumped] into the stove”—K. Chukovskii).



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At the two extremities of the port, in order that their fires should converge upon the great axis of the ellipsis formed by the basin, in the first place, two batteries had been raised, evidently destined to receive flank pieces, for D'Artagnan saw the workmen finishing the platform and making ready the demi-circumference in wood upon which the wheels of the pieces might turn to embrace every direction over the epaulement.
I do; that is about the distance that separates your chamber from mine; only, unfortunately, I did not curve aright; for want of the necessary geometrical instruments to calculate my scale of proportion, instead of taking an ellipsis of forty feet, I made it fifty.
Philosophy teaches us that the atmos- phere will not retain lead; and two pounds of the metal, moulded into bullets of thirty to the pound, after describing an ellipsis in their journey, returned to the earth rattling among the branches of the trees directly over the heads of the troops stationed in the rear of their captain.
 
 
 
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