apostrophic


Also found in: Thesaurus, Encyclopedia.

a·pos·tro·phe 1

 (ə-pŏs′trə-fē)
n.
The superscript sign ( ' ), usually used to indicate the omission of a letter or letters from a word, the possessive case, or the plurals of numbers, letters, and abbreviations.

[French, from Late Latin apostrophus, from Greek apostrophos, from apostrephein, to turn away : apo-, apo- + strephein, to turn; see streb(h)- in Indo-European roots.]

ap′os·troph′ic (ăp′ə-strŏf′ĭk) adj.

a·pos·tro·phe 2

 (ə-pŏs′trə-fē)
n.
The direct address of an absent or imaginary person or of a personified abstraction, especially as a digression in the course of a speech or composition.

[Late Latin apostrophē, from Greek, from apostrephein, to turn away; see apostrophe1.]

ap′os·troph′ic (ăp′ə-strŏf′ĭk) adj.
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:
Adj.1.apostrophic - of or characteristic of apostrophe; "a passage of apostrophic grandeur"
Based on WordNet 3.0, Farlex clipart collection. © 2003-2012 Princeton University, Farlex Inc.
References in periodicals archive ?
Likewise, where the auditor is defined as the necessary immediate and active interlocutor of the monologue, the theory of the genre must change: the dramatic monologue becomes a form of rhetorical performance, whether for the purpose of communication (Dorothy Mermin) or transformation, be it through apostrophic swerves of voice (W.
It is also implicit in Macbeth's later apostrophic supplication to "seeling Night" to hoodwink "pitiful day" and with its "bloody and invisible hand / Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond / Which keeps me pale" (3.2.46-50).
As an apostrophic gesture, Banksy's Guantanamo detainee in Disneyland disrupts the narrative fabric of the site in order to enunciate to its audience/spectators two critical questions: What historico-political genealogies are at once ruptured and sutured through this figure?
A book being always a tacit claim to acquaintante with all humanity, Huck's self-authorization is a re-inscriptive, apostrophic letter or more accurately epistle to the world--the world that never really wrote to him thus far.
Offering a more theorized but still diametrical contrast, Jonathan Culler posits the narrative and the apostrophic as the two poles for poetry, with lyric typically "the triumph of the apostrophic" (149).
Before the first verb appears in the poem, the reader has already encountered four distinct subjectivities: "Le Cygne" (the poem's title); "Victor Hugo" (the dedication); "Andromaque" (the apostrophic opening); "je" (the speaking subject).
Many apostrophic passages, no second-person narrative.