Why “lipogram” is a great word
LIPOGRAM — [Noun] A written work composed under the constraint of deliberately omitting one or more specific letters of the alphabet. From Ancient Greek λειπογράμμα (leipongrámma), from λείπω (leípō, "to leave out, omit") + γράμμα (grámma, "letter"), first attested in English in the early 18th century. Unlike a pangram, which strains for exhaustive inclusion, or the broad field of constrained writing, which encompasses myriad rules, a lipogram is defined by a singular, ascetic absence. It is a novel without the letter 'e', a sonnet shunning the sibilant 's', or a treatise dancing around a forbidden vowel—a testament to the mind's potency when navigating a self-imposed famine, where meaning persists most stubbornly in the spaces we choose to leave empty.