lipo-, leip-, leips-, lips- +

1. In astronomy, the partial or complete hiding from view of a celestial body; that is, the Sun or Moon, when another celestial body comes between it and the observer.
2. A loss or blocking of light.
3. A loss of status, power, or favor.
4. Etymology: from Old French eclipse, from Latom eclipsis; from Greek ekleipsis, "a leaving out, forsaking, an eclipse", from ekleipein, "to forsake a usual place, fail to appear, be eclipsed"; from ek, "out" + leipein, "to leave".

1. The apparent path of the Sun's annual motion relative to the stars, shown as a circle passing throuh the center of the imaginary sphere (celestial sphere) containing all of the celestial bodies.
2. Relating to, involving, or typical of an eclipse.

1. A shape like a stretched circle with slightly longer, flatter sides.
2. An oval or oblong figure, bounded by a regular curve, which corresponds to an oblique projection of a circle, or an oblique section of a cone through its opposite sides. The greatest diameter of the ellipse is the major axis, and the least diameter is the minor axis.
3. The elliptical orbit of a planet.
4. Omission, see ellipsis.
5. Etymology: from French ellipse, which came from Latin ellipsis, "ellipse"; also, "a falling short, deficit", from Greek elleipsis.

1. The omission of a word or phrase necessary for a complete syntactical construction but not necessary for understanding; an example of such omission.
2. A mark or series of marks ( . . . or * * * or - - -, for example) used in writing or printing to indicate an omission; especially, of letters or words.
3. The omission from a sentence or other construction of one or more words that would complete or clarify the construction, as the omission of "who are", "while I am", or "while we are" as in this sentence: "I like to interview people sitting down"; instead of "I like to interview who are sitting down."
4. The omission of one or more items from a construction in order to avoid repeating the identical or equivalent items that are in a preceding or following construction; such as, the omission of "been to Paris" from the second clause of "I've been to Paris, but they haven't."
5. The omission of one or more words from a sentence, especially when what is omitted can be understood from the context. The omission of "go" at the end of "I went but my wife didn't" ("I went but my wife didn't go") is another example of an ellipsis.

A geometric surface or a solid figure shaped like an oval. Any section through an ellipsoic is either an ellipse or a circle; oval-shaped.

1. In geometry, in the shape or pattern of a geometric ellipse.
2. In grammar, relating to ellipsis or containing an example of ellipsis.
3. Extremely concise in speech or writing, sometimes so concise as to be difficult or impossible to understand.

The deviation or degree of deviation of an ellipse or ellipsoid from a perfect circle or sphere. Ellipticity is measured as the ratio of the major axis to the minor axis of the ellipse or ellipsoid.

1. A text that excludes a particular letter or particular letters of the alphabet.
2. A written work composed of words chosen so as to avoid the use of one or more specific alphabetic characters.
3. A composition from which the writer rejects all words that contain a certain letter or letters.

Writing a lipogram is a trivial task for uncommon letters like "z", "j", or "x"; but it is much more difficult for common letters like "e". Writing this way is impractical, as the author must omit many ordinary words, resulting in stilted-sounding text that can be difficult to understand. Well-written lipograms are rare.

An example of a lipogrammatic writing is the classical Odyssey of Tryphiodorus in which there was no "a" in the first book, no "b" in the second book, and so on.

Another example of a lipogram is the following sentence which is considered to be something of an achievement; since the letter "t" is the second most commonly used letter in English: "Brisk pigmy gnome hides pudgy black while brash demon group, grown plump hawky, wreck cabin, would lynch dusky scamp."

Still another example of a lipogram is the following: "Profs from Oxford show frosh who do post-docs how to gloss works of Wordsworth." This sentence does not use any of the letters: "a", "e", "i", and "u".

1. Unintentional omission in writing, as of a specific letter or syllable.
2. The inadvertent omission of a letter, syllable, etc. in writing.

1. A group that characterizes a particular district by its absence from it.
2. Bears and deer are "lipomorphs" of Africa south of the Atlas, and Felis or cats in Australia.
3. Also known as lipotype.

In zoology, a primary division of rotifers composed of those microscopic creatures which have no footlike appendages and usually exist in aquatic habitats and occasionally in soil and damp moss.

1. A fainting; a swoon.
2. To fall into a swoon; to faint.

Tending to swoon; fainting.

A loss of hair.

A type of animal, or plant, the lack of which is characteristic of a specified region.