tmesis

See also: Tmesis

English

WOTD – 2 November 2007

Etymology

From Late Latin tmēsis, from Ancient Greek τμῆσις (tmêsis, “a cutting”), from τέμνω (témnō, “I cut”). First attested in 1586.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /t(ə)ˈmiːsɪs/, /ˈmiːsɪs/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

  ,

  Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iːsɪs

Noun

Examples
How bright the chit and chat, inserting and into chit-chat Abso-fucking-lutely, insertion of swear word fucking into absolutely A whole nother, a proscribed but common insertion.

tmesis (countable and uncountable, plural tmeses)

1. (prosody) The insertion of one or more words between the components of a compound word.

   Synonym: diacope

Derived terms

• axonotmesis
• neurotmesis

Related terms

• tmema
• tmetic

Translations

insertion of one or more words between the components of a word

• Bulgarian: тмезис m (tmezis)
• Catalan: tmesi (ca) f
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 分字法 (fēnzìfǎ), 插詞法／插词法 (chācífǎ)

• Dutch: tmesis (nl) f
• Esperanto: tmezo
• Finnish: tmeesi (fi)
• French: tmèse (fr) f
• German: Tmesis (de) f
• Greek: τμήση (el) f (tmísi)
• Irish: timéis f
• Italian: tmesi f
• Japanese: 切離 (きりはな, kirihana)
• Latin: tmēsis f, diacopē f
• Polish: tmeza (pl) f
• Portuguese: tmese (pt) f
• Russian: тме́зис (ru) m (tmézis), тме́сис (ru) m (tmésis)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: тмеза f

  Roman: tmeza (sh) f

• Spanish: tmesis f
• Swedish: tmesis c
• Tagalog: salingit

See also

• infix
• -bloody-
• -fucking-

Further reading

• tmesis on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• MSTies, i-stems, misset, smites, stimes, tsimes

Latin

Alternative forms

• thmesis (Medieval Latin)

Etymology

From Ancient Greek τμῆσις (tmêsis, “a cutting”), from τέμνω (témnō, “I cut”).

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /ˈtmeː.sis/, [ˈt̪meːs̠ɪs̠]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈtme.sis/, [ˈt̪mɛːs̬is]

Noun

tmēsis f (genitive tmēsis); third declension

1. (grammar) The separation of a word, tmesis.

Declension

Third-declension noun (i-stem).

	singular	plural
nominative	tmēsis	tmēsēs
genitive	tmēsis	tmēsium
dative	tmēsī	tmēsibus
accusative	tmēsin tmēsim	tmēsēs tmēsīs
ablative	tmēsī	tmēsibus
vocative	tmēsis	tmēsēs

Descendants

• English: tmesis
• French: tmèse

References

• “tmesis”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• tmesis in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.

Spanish

Noun

tmesis f (plural tmesis)

1. (prosody) tmesis