[ad. L. ēlīsiōn-em, f. ēlīdĕre: see ELIDE.]
1. The action of dropping out or suppressing a. a letter or syllable in pronunciation; b. a passage in a book or connecting links in discourse. Also an instance of either of these.
1581. Sidney, Apol. Poetrie (Arb.), 70. The Italian is so full of Vowels, that it must euer be cumbred with Elisions.
1589. Puttenham, Eng. Poesie, II. xii[i]. (Arb.), 129. If there were no cause of elision.
1710. Steele, Tatler, No. 230, ¶ 6. The … Elisions, by which Consonants of most obdurate Sound are joined together.
1836. Hor. Smith, Tin Trump. (1875), 2. Standard words … are arbitrarily cut off by elision.
1870. Bowen, Logic, iii. 57. The science claims, therefore, to fill up the gaps and elisions of ordinary discourse.
† 2. Elision of the air: formerly assigned as the cause of sound (see quot.). Obs.
1626. Bacon, Sylva, § 124. 41. The Cause giuen of Sound, that it should be an Elision of the Aire, (whereby, if they meane any thing, they meane a Cutting, or Diuiding, or else an Attenuating of the Aire) is but a Terme of Ignorance.
1660. Boyle, New Exp. Phys.-Mech., Digress. 346. The Production and Modulation of the Voice by the Elision of the Air.
3. A breaking (so as to make a gap) by mechanical force. (Scarcely a recognised Eng. use.)
1760. trans. Juan & Ulloa’s Voy. S. Amer. (1772), II. 98. The sea formed these large cavities … by its continual elisions.
1881. Times, 12 March, 7/6. It [Casamicciola] is now half in ruins, and even those houses which have stood are crippled by elisions.
