(n.) A figure of speech by which the orator or writer suddenly breaks off from the previous method of his discourse, and addresses, in the second person, some person or thing, absent or present; as, Milton's apostrophe to Light at the beginning of the third book of "Paradise Lost."
(n.) The contraction of a word by the omission of a letter or letters, which omission is marked by the character ['] placed where the letter or letters would have been; as, call'd for called.
(n.) The mark ['] used to denote that a word is contracted (as in ne'er for never, can't for can not), and as a sign of the possessive, singular and plural; as, a boy's hat, boys' hats. In the latter use it originally marked the omission of the letter e.
Example Sentences:
(1) The Ukrainian security service said it had forbidden Seagal entry to the country for five years, in a letter published by the news site Apostrophe.
(2) What if she misuses an apostrophe in her next post?
(3) The apostrophe has been missing since time immemorial.
(4) Instinctively, I glance at my room, looking for long-gone stickers in the window, the one for Mix ’96 (“Bucks Best Music” – the lack of apostrophe still irritates), and an aquapark we once went to in Spain.
(5) The word did not exist until the early 1700s, when the “a” in “acute” was replaced by an apostrophe – ’cute – and then dropped altogether.
(6) "The theme tune by Ronnie Hazlehurst features a piccolo spelling out the title in Morse code, excluding the apostrophes.
(7) He campaigned mightily to preserve the correct usage of the apostrophe, and the good councillors of Clogthorpe would be lampooned regularly as they ponderously set about desecrating their Victorian town in the cause of modernity.
(8) But it is far more important to highlight the moments that make this job truly special, like seeing the imagination a year 10 boy will put into thinking up a false name when caught misbehaving, or the deliberate misuse of an apostrophe by a student who, in his own way, is showing you he gets it.
(9) • This article was amended on 21 June 2012 to remove a misplaced apostrophe in the standfirst.
(10) But Tussauds (which has now dropped the apostrophe) never quite enjoyed the credibility of a museum and tended to be sneered at by historians.
(11) Unfortunately named cafe chain Apostrophe also fell victim to the curse of the apostrophe in a marketing slogan, "Great taste on it's way".
(12) Long before Lynne Truss's, Eats, Shoots & Leaves, Waterhouse founded The Association for the Abolition of the Aberrant Apostrophe: vile lapses of grammar in shops were among many regular targets.
(13) It could be something as small as a "Hope your OK" text, which will send me spiralling into apocalyptic visions of a life without apostrophes or question marks.
(14) As annoying as errant apostrophes and misplaced hyphens can be, they probably didn’t warrant their own website, nor were so offensive as to need incineration.
(15) Next comes the NHS, for confusing subject and object in a letter – "Your appointment has now been organised to attend Queen Mary's Hospital … " – and featuring a rogue apostrophe: "The RDC Suite's are clearly signposted".
Contraction
Definition:
(n.) The act or process of contracting, shortening, or shrinking; the state of being contracted; as, contraction of the heart, of the pupil of the eye, or of a tendion; the contraction produced by cold.
(n.) The process of shortening an operation.
(n.) The act of incurring or becoming subject to, as liabilities, obligation, debts, etc.; the process of becoming subject to; as, the contraction of a disease.
(n.) Something contracted or abbreviated, as a word or phrase; -- as, plenipo for plenipotentiary; crim. con. for criminal conversation, etc.
(n.) The shortening of a word, or of two words, by the omission of a letter or letters, or by reducing two or more vowels or syllables to one; as, ne'er for never; can't for can not; don't for do not; it's for it is.
(n.) A marriage contract.
Example Sentences:
(1) During the performance of propulsive waves of the oesophagus the implanted vagus nerve caused clonic to tetanic contractions of the sternohyoid muscle, thus proving the oesophagomotor genesis of the reinnervating nerve fibres.
(2) But RWE admitted it had often only been able to retain customers with expired contracts by offering them new deals with more favourable conditions.
(3) Thus adrenaline, via pre- and post-junctional adrenoceptors, may contribute to enhanced vascular smooth muscle contraction, which most likely is sensitized by the elevated intracellular calcium concentration.
(4) Further, the maximal increase in force of contraction was measured using papillary muscle strips from some of these patients.
(5) When subjects centered themselves actively, or additionally, contracted trunk flexor or extensor muscles to predetermined levels of activity, no increase in trunk positioning accuracy was found.
(6) Twitch-tetanus ratios were calculated and found not to be related to unit contraction time.6.
(7) Selective removal of endothelium had no effect on BK-induced contraction or the action of the antagonists.
(8) The increased muscular strength in due to a rise of calcaemia, improved muscle contraction and probably also due to the mentioned nutritional factors.
(9) However, there was not a relationship between the contraction curve of the gallbladder and the bile flow into the duodenum.
(10) In in vitro preparations GABA (10(-7) - 10(-3) M) elicited a dose-dependent relaxation; a decrease in the spontaneous contractions was sometimes observed.
(11) There was no correlation between disturbed gastric clearance, impaired gall bladder contraction, and prolonged colonic transit time in the patients with cardiovascular autonomic neuropathy nor was there a correlation between any disturbed motor function and age or duration of diabetes.
(12) Noradrenaline decreased the phasic contraction amplitude of the circular muscle and exerted a stimulant effect on the tone which suggested an existence of two alpha 1-adrenoceptor subtypes.
(13) It may, however, be useful to compare local wall dynamics in the more isometrically-contracting basal segment with those in the middle portion which brings about most of the emptying of the ventricle.
(14) Upon depletion of ATP in contraction, the P2 intensity reverted to the original rigor level, accompanied by development of rigor tension.
(15) L-NAME abolished B contractions in a dose-dependent fashion.
(16) The power spectrum of the EMG was analyzed during isometric contractions of the shoulder muscles.
(17) A23187 had only a transient effect on KCl-contracted coronary arteries.
(18) When caffeine evokes a contraction, and only then, crayfish muscle fibers become refractory to a second challenge with caffeine for up to 20 min in the standard saline (5 mM K(o)).
(19) Dopamine at concentrations over 10(-5)M induced contractions of tracheal muscle strips and repeated exposures resulted in desensitization (tachyphylaxis) of the muscle.
(20) In the present study we examined cholecystokinin release and gallbladder contraction after oral administration of a commercial fatty meal (Sorbitract; Dagra, Diemen, The Netherlands) using ultrasonography in eight normal subjects and eight gallstone patients before and after 1 and 4 weeks of treatment with ursodeoxycholic acid (10 mg kg-1.day-1).