hiatus

Pronunciation

• US: /haɪˈeɪtəs/^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin hiātus (“gaping, opening, gap”),^[2][3][4][5] a noun formed from the past participle of hiō (“to gape, stand open”).^[4][3][6][7] Etymonline traces the verb to Proto-Indo-European *ghieh- (“to yawn, gape, be wide open”),^[8] and Ayto to the same Indo-European base as yawn and, through Greek, chasm.^[9][10] Klein compares dehisce.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

A break or opening in a material object, a gaping chasm: 1563, in William Fulke's Goodly Gallery, a book on meteors.^[2][3][8]

Semantic evolution

From 1613 the word was used of a gap in a series or in time, and of a missing part that leaves a text or account incomplete;^[2][5] Etymonline dates this sense to the 1610s.^[8] The grammatical and prosodic sense, the break between two vowels that meet without a consonant between them, is first recorded in a letter of Pope in 1706.^[2][5] Johnson (1755) gave both "an aperture; a breach" and the meeting of a final and an initial vowel.^[12] Sterne used it humorously in 1761 for a hole in a garment, and in logic it came to mean a missing step in an argument (before 1850).^[2] The anatomical sense, an opening in an organ such as the one in the diaphragm through which the oesophagus passes, is recorded from 1886, as in hiatus hernia.^[2][6] The physical sense of a chasm or aperture is now rare.^[2][13]

Timeline

• 1563 – a break or opening in a material object.^[2][3]
• 1613 – a gap in a series; a missing part of a text.^[2]
• 1706 – the break between two adjacent vowels.^[2]
• 1761 – humorously, a hole in a garment.^[2]
• before 1850 – in logic, a gap in reasoning.^[2]
• 1886 – in anatomy, an opening, as in hiatus hernia.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A break or pause in an activity or in a series: The band returned after a three-year hiatus.^[14][6]
2. A gap where something is missing, especially in a manuscript; a lacuna.^[14][2]
3. In phonetics and prosody, a break between two vowels that come together in successive syllables or words without a consonant between them.^[14][2][12]
4. In anatomy, a natural opening or gap in an organ; a foramen.^[14][6][2]
5. In logic, a missing step in a chain of reasoning.^[2]
6. A gap or opening in a material object; a chasm.^[2][6]

Word family

• hiatal
• hiatus hernia

Related words

• yawn
• chasm
• dehisce
• gape

Usage notes

The plural is hiatuses or, less often, hiatus.^[14][13]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
8. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
10. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
12. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins