prosiopesis

Meaning

Noun

• Ellipsis of the beginning of a grammatical construction, common in informal speech and spontaneous written electronic communication, frequently occurring in stock phrases and interjections.

Origin

• Coined in 1917 by the Danish linguist Jens Otto Harry Jespersen: pro- (from the Ancient Greek preposition πρό) + σιώπησις (from σιωπάω) + -σις, (-sis, suffix forming nouns of action).