apologetic apostrophe
apologetic apostrophe noun: an apostrophe added to a Scots word in order to give the appearance that it is a contraction of an English word.
Noun
apologetic apostrophe (plural apologetic apostrophes)
- An apostrophe added to a Scots word in order to give the appearance that it is a contraction of an English word.
- While not all agreements were carried out as planned, what this attempt at consistency achieved in Smith's case was to give his poetry the appearance of a distinctive literary language, related to English, but having its own identity and forms, and without the distraction for the reader of the...2009, Margery Palmer McCulloch, Scottish Modernism and Its Contexts 1918-1959
- A similar apostrophe added to a present participle of the -in form in English or in Scots, producing -in', according to the emic notion that the /ŋ/ is always contracted (as opposed to the forms coexisting allophonically).
Forms of apologetic apostrophe
| plural | apologetic apostrophes |
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Questions about apologetic apostrophe
- What does apologetic apostrophe mean?
- Apologetic apostrophe means an apostrophe added to a Scots word in order to give the appearance that it is a contraction of an English word.
- What part of speech is apologetic apostrophe?
- Apologetic apostrophe is a noun.
- What is the plural of apologetic apostrophe?
- The plural of apologetic apostrophe is apologetic apostrophes.
Words near apologetic apostrophe in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: apologetic apostrophe (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-apologetic apostrophe.ogg.
Cite this entry: “apologetic apostrophe.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/apologetic_apostrophe. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.