apostrophize

present singular third person apostrophizes · participle present apostrophizing · participle past apostrophized · past apostrophized · alternative apostrophise

1. transitiveTo deliver an apostrophe (a speech, typically exclamatory) to someone, especially someone not present in person as a participant in the conversation, even someone imaginary.

   Just as I could not shed tears, so was I incapable of apostrophizing God in my despair.

   1895, Marie Corelli, The Sorrows of Satan: or The Strange Experience of One Geoffrey Tempest, Millionaire […], 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: J[oshua] B[allinger] Lippincott Company, published 1896, →OCLC, page 11

   4 more examples

   [S]he resumed her former occupation, and continued to soliloquize and apostrophize her absent hand-maidens, without even appearing sensible of his presence.

   1823 December 23 (indicated as 1824), [Walter Scott], “The Guest”, in St Ronan’s Well. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co., →OCLC, page 33

   "He fully believes he is one of the aristocracy! And he is so condescending to the son he so egregiously deludes that you might suppose him the most virtuous of parents. Oh!" said the old lady, apostrophizing him with infinite vehemence. "I could bite you!"

   1852 March – 1853 September, Charles Dickens, chapter 14, in Bleak House, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1853, →OCLC

   “Ah! poultry, poultry! You little thought,” said Mr. Pumblechook, apostrophising the fowl in the dish, “when you was a young fledgling, what was in store for you. […]”

   1860 December – 1861 August, Charles Dickens, chapter XIX, in Great Expectations […], volume I, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published October 1861, →OCLC, page 329

   Miss Phyllis Morgan, as the hapless heroine dressed in the shabbiest of clothes, appears in the midst of a gay and giddy throng; she apostrophises all and sundry there, including the villain, and has a magnificent scene which always brings down the house, and nightly adds to her histrionic laurels.

   1904–1905, Baroness Orczy [i.e., Emma Orczy], chapter 2, in The Case of Miss Elliott, London: T[homas] Fisher Unwin, published 1905, →OCLC; republished as popular edition, London: Greening & Co., 1909, OCLC 11192831, quoted in The Case of Miss Elliott (ebook no. 2000141h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg of Australia, February 2020

2. To add one or more apostrophe characters to text to indicate missing letters.