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Dots or a rule showing a gap where text is missing entirely.
Also known as: Gap mark, Row of dots in an old text
A run of dots, or a ruled line, standing for text that is simply gone. Where an editor can estimate the size of the loss the dots are counted; where they cannot, the mark says only that something is absent.
A run of dots or a horizontal rule marking a gap in a text where material is lost, whether through physical damage to the object or through loss in transmission.
Contexts: History
Where the size of the loss can be estimated from the object, editors count the dots or give a number, so that the reader knows roughly how much is missing rather than merely that something is.
Distinct from an ordinary ellipsis, which marks text deliberately omitted by a quoting author. One says the text is lost; the other says the quoter left it out.
Context settles which is meant, and the two are frequently conflated.
A row of evenly spaced dots on the baseline, or a plain horizontal rule, standing in place of text.
A lacuna marks text that is lost; an ellipsis marks text the quoter chose to omit.