Learn English – What does “ellipses in thought” mean

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From Primal Fear (1996)
A psychiater discovers that her patient suffers from the dissociated personality. She describes:

I kept seeing the signs. The big ones. Abusive background, these
repeated blackouts, the ellipses in thought

I couldn't really understand what are ellipses in this case. All dictionaries say that an ellipse is from mathematics.

Best Answer

For all practical purposes English speaking persons should consider the medical term Ellipsis (plural form Ellipses) as a synonym to "lapse" :

  • A mistake resulting from inattention
  • A break or intermission in the occurrence of something
  • A failure to maintain a higher state

Ellipsis originates from the greek word : "ἕλλειψις" meaning want, deficiency, lack thereof, etc. and although historically the Greeks used the same word for the mathematical shape which describes an ellipse, ellipse and ellipsis are two completely distinct words in English, carrying different meanings.

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