hiatus

—hiatal, adj.

/huy ay"teuhs/, n., pl. hiatuses, hiatus.

1. a break or interruption in the continuity of a work, series, action, etc.

2. a missing part; gap or lacuna: Scholars attempted to account for the hiatus in the medieval manuscript.

3. any gap or opening.

4. Gram., Pros. the coming together, with or without break or slight pause, and without contraction, of two vowels in successive words or syllables, as in see easily.

5. Anat. a natural fissure, cleft, or foramen in a bone or other structure.

[1555-65; < L hiatus opening, gap, equiv. to hia(re) to gape, open + -tus suffix of v. action]

Syn. 3. break, interval, space.

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▪ prosody

      in prosody, a break in sound between two vowels that occur together without an intervening consonant, both vowels being clearly enunciated. The two vowels may be either within one word, as in the words Vienna and naive, or the final and initial vowels of two successive words, as in the phrases “see it” and “go in.” Hiatus is the opposite of elision, the dropping or blurring of the second vowel; it is also distinct from diphthongization, in which the vowels blend to form one sound.

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