Elliptical: characterized by extreme economy of expression or omission of superfluous events; marked by deliberate obscurity of style or expression.
Elliptical has a connotation: although it means “concise in expression”, it also implies that the purpose for such concision is to be obscure, mysterious and perhaps evasive.
The root of this word is from the Greek language (“elleiptikos”, which means “defective”). Here is an example, taken from a passage of Steven King’s The Stand:
He gave her a jolly wink. “Every dog has his day, Fran.”
She smiled back at him, a little puzzled. But she supposed it was just Harold, being elliptical.
A related word-concept is disingenuous.
The idea is one of deception. In the example above, Harold was being elliptical and disingenuous because he was hiding something from Fran.
No comments:
Post a Comment