omission

From Middle English omissioun, from Old French omission, from Late Latin omissio, omissionem, from Latin omitto.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /əˈmɪʃən/
• (US) IPA^(key): /oʊˈmɪʃən/

• Audio (CA)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪʃən

omission (countable and uncountable, plural omissions)

1. (uncountable) The act of omitting.
2. (uncountable) The act of neglecting to perform an action one has an obligation to do.

   E&O insurance (for errors and omissions) covers both errors of commission and errors of omission.

3. (countable) An instance of those acts, or the thing left out thereby; something deleted or left out.

   The suspicious omissions in the new edition of the book attracted claims of censorship.

4. Something not done or neglected.

   The lack of a sponge count was an omission by the surgical team.

5. (grammar) The shortening of a word or phrase, using an apostrophe ( ' ) to replace the missing letters, often used to approximate the sound of speech or a specific dialect.

   Hyponym: contraction

Following are common examples of omission using an apostrophe:

six o’clock (shortening of “six of the clock”)

The high school class of ’69 (shortening of “1969”)

O’er there (shortening of “over there”)

• From Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn:

  S’pose people left money laying around where he was—what did he do? He collared it. S’pose he contracted to do a thing; and you paid him, and didn’t set down there and see that he done it—what did he do? He always done the other thing. S’pose he opened his mouth—what then? If he didn't shut it up powerful quick, he'd lose a lie, every time. That’s the kind of a bug Henry was; and if we’d ’a’ had him along ’stead of our kings, he’d ’a’ fooled that town a heap worse than ourn done.

• contraction

Borrowed from Late Latin omissiōnem, from Latin omittō. See omettre and -tion.

• IPA^(key): /ɔ.mi.sjɔ̃/

omission f (plural omissions)

1. omission (act of omitting)

   Synonym: prétérition

• omettre

• “omission”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

omission

1. Alternative form of omissioun