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A.Word.A.Day--brachylogy

This week's theme: words about words.

brachylogy (bra-KIL-uh-jee) noun

Conciseness of diction or an instance of such.

[From Medieval Latin brachylogia, from Greek brakhulogi, brakhu-, brachy- (short) + -logy, from logos (word).]

-Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)

"The term for the omission of words that are intended to be 'understood' by the reader is ellipsis. Its extreme or irregular form has a name in Greek rhetoric: brachylogy, relying on the listener to supply the missing words, much as I relied on the reader to put a verb in the sentence fragment 'A profound question, that.'" William Safire; Microwave of the Future; The New York Times; Oct 7, 1990.

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