Willa CatherJ. G. Colton
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 open wide,” 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.
Synonyms
Examples of hiatus in a Sentence
Peter White, Deadline, 9 Aug. 2024
In 2022, the production took an extended hiatus in the middle of filming its fifth season, which turned into a delay that lasted over a year amid wrangling over the busy schedules of showrunner Sheridan and star Kevin Costner.
—Jackie Strause, The Hollywood Reporter, 8 Aug. 2024
To take on such a high-wire film role after a seven-year hiatus — and after enduring the public scrutiny that inevitably follows when a celebrity dares to share their identity with the world — speaks not just to Page’s bravery, but to his curiosity as an artist.
—Amos Mac, Them, 7 Aug. 2024
The View might be on a month-long hiatus between seasons, but panelist Alyssa Farah Griffin is still firing off hot takes on Hot Topics on her own time.
—EW.com, 6 Aug. 2024
See all Example Sentences for hiatus 
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'hiatus.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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Cite this Entry
“Hiatus.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hiatus. Accessed 20 Aug. 2024.
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hiatus
noun
Medical Definition
hiatus
noun
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