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hiatus

noun
/haɪˈeɪtəs/US/hɐˈjaː.t̪ʊs/

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Latin hiātus (“opening”) (mid-16th century), from hiō (“stand open, yawn”).

  1. learned borrowing from hiātus — “opening”

Definitions

  1. A gap in a series, making it incomplete.

    • Even the mechanical engineer comes at last to an end of his figures, and must stand up, a practical man, face to face with the discrepancies of nature and the hiatuses of theory.

  2. An interruption, break, pause or absence.

    • The band decided to go on hiatus, citing creative differences.
    • It is wonderful that you should have slipped back into your American life so easily after your English hiatus.
    • After a ten-year dividend hiatus, shareholder payments only re-started in July 2022.

  3. An temporary break from work, especially one which is unexpected.

  4. ›+ 3 more definitions

    1. A gap in geological strata.

      • The beginning of the Mesozoic Era on the Colorado Plateau is marked by a regional hiatus or break of sedimentary deposition that lasted about 25 to 30 Ma.

    2. An opening in an organ.

      • Hiatus aorticus is an opening in the diaphragm through which aorta and thoracic duct pass.

    3. A syllable break between two vowels, without an intervening consonant.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for hiatus. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA