WORD OF THE DAY: HIATUS
noun|hye-AY-tus
What It Means
In general contexts, hiatus usually refers to a period of time when something, such as an activity or programme, is suspended. In biology, hiatus describes a gap or passage in an anatomical part or organ, and in linguistics, it refers to the occurrence of two vowel sounds without pause or intervening consonantal sound.
// The actor, who’s been on hiatus for several years, will be starring in a new film.
Examples of HIATUS
“Following its return in 2025 after a nearly three-year hiatus, the 52nd American Music Awards are heading back to Las Vegas to be broadcast live from a new venue, the MGM Grand Garden Arena.” — Steven J. Horowitz, Variety, 10 Mar.
Did You Know?
This brief hiatus in your day is brought to you by, well, hiatus. While the word now most often refers to a temporary pause, hiatus originally referred to a physical opening in something, such as the mouth of a cave, or, as the 18th century British novelist Laurence Sterne would have it, a sartorial gap: in the wildly experimental novel Tristram Shandy, Sterne wrote of “the hiatus in Phutatorius’s breeches.” Hiatus comes from the Latin verb hiare, meaning “to yawn,” which makes it a distant relation of both yawn and chasm. And that’s all we have for now—you may resume your regular activities.
Merriam Webster Dictionary
