An address to a dead or absent person, or personification as if he or she were present. In his Holy Sonnet “Death, be not proud,” John Donne denies death’s power by directly admonishing it. Emily Dick [..]

mark indicating omitted letter, 1580s, from Middle French apostrophe, from Late Latin apostrophus, from Greek apostrophos (prosoidia) "(the accent of) turning away," thus, a mark showing whe [..]

Not to be confused with the punctuation mark, apostrophe is the act of addressing some abstraction or personification that is not physically present: For instance, John Donne commands, "Oh, Death [..]

A punctuation mark used to: indicate ownership and possession (apostrophe denoting ownership). indicate missing letters or numbers in a contraction or abbreviation.

Apart from its use as the name of a mark of punctuation ('), the term apostrophe is used for a kind of formal invocation. Sometimes the invocation is to an absent (or even dead) person: "Mil [..]

In rhetoric the word is used to describe a sudden address to a person or personification. In punctuation the same word is used to describe the mark ' which can be used to indicate the beginning a [..]

Via Latin from the Greek apostrephein, meaning to turn away, a digression. Used to describe a moment when a speaker turns away from the main line of discourse, usually in order to address a real or imagined person and usually with an intense emotion that can no longer be held back.

A punctuation marker used to: indicate possession, for example 'Rosie's cup'. Note: an apostrophe attaches to nouns, not possessive pronouns such as hers, his, its, theirs, our [..]

 – where the speaker speaks to a dead or non-present person

The direct address of a person or personified thing, either present or absent. Its most common purpose in prose is to give vent to or display intense emotion, which can no longer be held back. Thus an apostrophe often interrupts the discussion: O value of wisdom that fadeth not away with time, virtue ever flourishing, that cleanseth its possessor f [..]

Poem which is directly addressed to a person or thing (often absent). An example is Wordsworth's sonnet Milton which begins: 'Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour'. NB [..]

Punctuation mark indicating possession (Bob's car) or representing letters that have been removed (wouldn't, isn't).

(n) address to an absent or imaginary person(n) the mark (') used to indicate the omission of one or more letters from a printed word

(punctuation mark) a symbol that stands in for omitted characters (as in a contraction); marks the possessive form; or, in rare cases, creates a plural form.

addressing an alternate audience midstream, whether that audience be a person, group, or abstraction, present or absent.

  The sign (') used to create the possessive form of a noun. This is usually accomplished by adding an apostrophe to the noun followed by a letter s. The apostrophe is also used to denote the plu [..]

<character> "'" ASCII character 39. Common names include single quote; quote; ITU-T: apostrophe. Rare: prime; glitch; tick; irk; pop; INTERCAL: spark; ITU-T: closing single quotation mark; ITU-T: acute accent. Single quote is used in C and derived languages to introduce a single character literal value which is represented inte [..]

O, the apostrophe, how we love thee!Nope, we're not just talking about the punctuation mark. In poetry, an apostrophe is a term used when a speaker directly addresses someone or something that is [..]