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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." |
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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. |
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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. |
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