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."
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.
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.
is an address to a person absent, dead or an address to an abstract entity Eg. "O memory so like the little lark that runs" from GALLIPOLI by Mary Gilmore.
an emotion-charged address to an absent or dead person, abstract quality, or object.
1) a mark used to indicate absent letters in contractions, dialect, and the possessive case. On many typewriters and word processors, the apostrophe is the same as the single quotation mark. 2) a speech to an absent person or to a personification. When a soap opera character in an empty room says "Greg, when will you come back to me?" this is apostrophe, and so all speeches addressed to love, death, war, lust, or hate.
an direct address to a person or thing that is not present.
Direct address, usually to someone or something that is not present. Keats's "Bright star! Would I were steadfast" is an apostrophe to a star, and "To Autumn" is an apostrophe to a personified season.
an address to someone or something not usually spoken to
A punctuation mark ( ' ) used to show possession. Also used in contractions, which should be avoided in formal prose. possession example: "That was Jack's favorite coffee mug." contraction example: "You shouldn't have dropped it." See for more information: Guide to Grammar and Style Apostrophe
address to an absent or imaginary person
the mark (') used to indicate the omission of one or more letters from a printed word
a direct address to an object or to someone who is not present
a figure of speech describing someone speaking or talking to an object as if it were a person
a form of punctuation used to express contracted verbs or possessives
a little thing that can cause a lot of trouble
a poetic figure of speech in which a person, abstraction, or entity is
a punctuation mark ( ' ) that appears as part of a word to show possession, to make a plural number or to indicate the omission of one or more letters
a punctuation mark used to indicate either omitted letters or possession
a rhetorical figure by which an absent person
a signal telling the reader that a word is either a possessive or a contraction
a symbol that indicates that some letters have been omitted from a word (for example, "do not" can be written as the contraction "don't")
A symbol ( ) used to denote possession (the book s cover; Tony s friends) or contraction (isn t; she ll). Sometimes used in plurals of letters or numbers.
language addressed to a person, animal, object, or other entity that is not present. See Talk to Animals (and Stars).
a figure of speech in which an absent person or an abstract quality is addressed directly.
Poem which is directly addressed to a person or thing (often absent). An example is Wordsworth's sonnet Milton which begins: 'Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour'. NB not to be confused with an apostrophe indicating missing letters or the possessive case. Other examples of apostrophe include A Supermarket in California by Allen Ginsberg (addressed to Walt Whitman) and my own poem Invocation.
Words that are spoken to a person who is absent or imaginary, or to an object or abstract idea. The poem God's World by Edna St. Vincent Millay begins with an apostrophe: "O World, I cannot hold thee close enough!/Thy winds, thy wide grey skies!/Thy mists that roll and rise!"
A statement, question, or request addressed to an inanimate object or concept or to a nonexistent or absent person. Requests for inspiration from the muses in poetry are examples of apostrophe, as is Marc Antony's address to Caesar's corpse in William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar: "O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth, That I am meek and gentle with these butchers!... Woe to the hand that shed this costly blood!..." (Compare with Monologue and Soliloquy.)
not to be confused with the punctuation mark, apostrophe is the act of addressing some abstraction or personification that is not physically present. There are also two other definitions: 1) turning away from the audience to address one person and 2) words addressed to a person or thing, whether absent or present, generally in a exclamatory tone and as a digression in a speech or literary writing. Example: In Macbeth, Macbeth's apostrophe to the dusk. (III.ii.46-55)
direct address to an absent person or personified concept or object.
directly addressing someone or something outside of the poem or story.
A direct and explicit address either to an absent person or to an abstract or non-human entity. Many odes contain such an address. Example: Keats begins “Ode on a Grecian Urn” by apostrophizing the urn – “Thou still unravished bride of quietness. . .
A literary device in which the speaker directly addresses someone dead, someone missing, an abstract quality, or something non human as if she/he/it were present.
The apostrophe ( ’ ) is a punctuation mark, and sometimes a diacritic mark, in languages written in the Latin alphabet. In English, it has two main functions: it marks omissions; and it assists in marking the possessives of all nouns and many pronouns. (In strictly limited cases, it is sometimes also allowed to assist in marking plurals, but most authorities are now against such usage; see below.)
Apostrophe (Greek αποστÏοφη, turning away; the final e being sounded) is an exclamatory rhetorical figure of speech, when a speaker or writer breaks off and directs speech to an imaginary person or abstract quality or idea. In dramatic works and poetry, it is often introduced by the word "O" (not to be confused with the exclamation "oh").