| a calculus or concretion found in the stomach or intestines of certain animals, esp. ruminants, formerly reputed to be an effective remedy for poison. |
| a screen or mat covered with a dark material for shielding a camera lens from excess light or glare. |
elision
(Latin: "striking out"), in prosody, the slurring or omission of a final unstressed vowel that precedes either another vowel or a weak consonant sound, as in the word heav'n. It may also be the dropping of a consonant between vowels, as in the word o'er for over. Elision is used to fit words into a metrical scheme, to smooth the rhythm of a poem, or to ease the pronunciation of words. In classical Greek poetry, an apostrophe (') is substituted for an elided letter, as is frequently the case in English verse. In Latin, however, the elided vowel or consonant remains, but it is ignored in scanning the line
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