hiatus

Language: en

🇺🇸 /haɪˈeɪtəs/

📖 Definitions

  1. noun
    A pause or gap in a sequence, series, or process; a break or interruption in continuity.; A gap or missing part in a manuscript, text, or series of data.; In phonetics, the occurrence of two vowel sounds in adjacent syllables without an intervening consonant, often considered undesirable in verse.; In anatomy, a natural opening, cleft, or passage in a bodily structure.; In geology, a break in the continuity of a sedimentary sequence, representing a period of non-deposition or erosion.

🔗 Details

Word forms

countable Plural: hiatuses, hiatus

Collocations

go on hiatustake a hiatushiatus herniaafter a hiatusa long hiatus

Derivatives

hiatal

Synonyms

gapbreakpauseinterruptionlapseintermission

Antonyms

continuationcontinuity

Commonly confused

hiati
EN: 'Hiati' is an incorrect hypercorrection; 'hiatus' is a Latin fourth-declension noun whose valid plurals are 'hiatuses' or 'hiatus', not 'hiati'.

Spelling tips

EN: The plural is 'hiatuses' or 'hiatus', not 'hiati'. The incorrect form 'hiati' arises from mistakenly applying second-declension Latin plural rules to this fourth-declension noun.

💬 Examples

  1. The band went on hiatus for five years before releasing a new album.

  2. Scholars noted a hiatus in the manuscript where several pages had been lost.

  3. The phrase 'the idea of it' contains a hiatus between 'idea' and 'of'.

  4. The esophageal hiatus is the opening in the diaphragm through which the esophagus passes.

  5. The unconformity marked a hiatus of nearly ten million years in the rock record.