Meanings
- uncountablehuman sciencesThe hiatus between prosodic units, e.g. at the end of a sentence.
The rule is that in the pausa a word must never end on a short vowel, but it may do so in the context.
1954, Johannes Hendrik Kramers, Analecta orientalia: posthumous writings and selected minor works3 more examples
Besides, the pausa endposition may have served to highlight the informational value of the substituendum.
1998, Pádraig MacCoisdealbha, The Syntax of the Sentence in Old Irish, →ISBNIn pausa you say 'ih, in the jussive la- ta'ih, analogous to 'ih, la- ta'ih. And since t' is complete as two letters, the tongue utters both of them in the pausa.
2004, Gerhard Endress, Rüdiger Arnzen, Jörn Thielmann, Words, Texts, and Concepts Cruising the Mediterranean Sea, →ISBNFor instance, the perfect in -miš (> -mi before pausa) always has the high unrounded vowel, the abstract noun suffix appears in a single variant +luġ, the infinitive is -maġ and the instrumental +ine.
2005, Éva Ágnes Csató, Bo Isaksson, Carina Jahani, Linguistic Convergence and Areal Diffusion: Case Studies from Iranian, page 245
Origin
- Ancient Greekπαῦσις
- Latinpausa“break”
- Englishpausa
From Latin pausa (“break”), from Ancient Greek παῦσις (paûsis). Doublet of pause.
More words from Latin, Ancient Greek
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Arabic وَقْف
- وَقْف (waqf)The hiatus between prosodic units
Indonesian wakaf, jeda
- wakafThe hiatus between prosodic units
- jedaThe hiatus between prosodic units
Polish pauza
- pauzaThe hiatus between prosodic units
Cite this entry
pausa. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pausa
“pausa.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pausa. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “pausa,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pausa.
Source: pausa on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.