hellip

Hellip is the name of the HTML and Unicode reference for the ellipsis, a common punctuation mark used to indicate omission, a pause, or an unfinished thought. The actual glyph is the single character “…”, encoded in Unicode as U+2026. The name hellip derives from the word ellipsis, which in turn comes from Greek meaning “to leave out” or “omission.”

In HTML, the ellipsis is represented as the named character reference … and also as the numeric reference …. Using the named entity helps ensure consistent rendering across browsers and fonts. In plain text and many programming contexts, the sequence of three periods “...” is often used as a substitute, though it is not the same typographically as the single ellipsis character.

Usage and meaning: an ellipsis signals that material is omitted from a quotation, that a character is trailing off in speech, or that a sentence continues beyond the visible text. Its interpretation can vary with style guides and languages, influencing whether spaces appear around the mark or how it interacts with surrounding punctuation.

History and typography: ellipses have existed in various printed forms since the early days of typography. Modern digital typography standardizes on the single-character ellipsis (U+2026) for consistency and typesetting efficiency, while three-period versions remain common in informal writing.

See also: Ellipsis, Unicode, HTML entities.