Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- transitive & intransitive verb To address by or speak or write in apostrophe.
from The Century Dictionary.
- In grammar: To omit a letter or letters. To mark such omission with the sign (').
- In rhetoric, to address by apostrophe.
- To make an apostrophe or short digressive address in speaking; speak in the manner of an apostrophe.
- Also spelled
apostrophise .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- intransitive verb To use the rhetorical figure called
apostrophe . - transitive verb To address by apostrophe.
- transitive verb To contract by omitting a letter or letters; also, to mark with an apostrophe (') or apostrophes.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb to use the
apostrophe figure of speech in writing or speech - verb to add one or more apostrophe
characters totext to indicate missing letters
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb use an apostrophe
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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He would have stopped all work to beg for extra pay at the merest suggestion of such a thing; but as it was he raised both fists and lapsed into his own tongue to apostrophize the ruffian who dared jostle King.
In The Time Of Light dj barber 2010
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She had, therefore, no sooner formed the hasty conclusion, that the individual in question belonged to this obnoxious class, than she resumed her former occupation, and continued to soliloquize and apostrophize her absent handmaidens, without even appearing sensible of his presence.
Saint Ronan's Well 2008
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The first begins with a Prologue that introduces a mysterious robed and cowled astrologer in some ancient structure with a zodiac chart on the ground and no ceiling so he can apostrophize grandiloquently to the stars.
HORRORSCOPE #1: THE GREEN FLAMES OF ARIES by Robert Lory 2005
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The first begins with a Prologue that introduces a mysterious robed and cowled astrologer in some ancient structure with a zodiac chart on the ground and no ceiling so he can apostrophize grandiloquently to the stars.
HORRORSCOPE #1: THE GREEN FLAMES OF ARIES by Robert Lory 2005
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The first begins with a Prologue that introduces a mysterious robed and cowled astrologer in some ancient structure with a zodiac chart on the ground and no ceiling so he can apostrophize grandiloquently to the stars.
Archive 2005-02-13 2005
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And consequently the surface of the hill began to disappear, and there were chasms in the orad, which caused those who travelled on wheels to sit still, staring across with angry eyes, and sometimes to apostrophize the doer of these deeds with very naughty words.
Castle Richmond 2004
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They say in his sadder vicissitudes he used sometimes to apostrophize fortune in the words of Aeschylus
The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans Plutarch 2003
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Women are always to seem to be this and that — yet virtue might apostrophize them, in the words of Hamlet — Seems!
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I am aware my English version is tame and insipid, though, perhaps, not quite as much so as a translation I once met with of the sentence with which it was said Timoleon, Duc de Brissac, used to apostrophize himself before the looking-glass every morning.
Lands of the Slave and the Free Cuba, the United States, and Canada Henry A. Murray
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I had by this time returned to the fireplace, and, reseating myself, began to apostrophize my magnificent black Newfoundland, who, having partaken of my dinner, was following the advice and example of Abernethy, and sleeping on the rug, as it digested.
The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction Volume 10, No. 270, August 25, 1827 Various
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