Google incorrectly scanned these Greek letters as "elf," but -- and this may surprise you! -- the sentence reads correctly that way, too.  If you take an elf away, you deprive a word of its significant part.  From Lexilogus by Philipp Carl Buttmann, 1836.   Important: see How to Believe in Your Elf.

"He pretended to yawn."  From Imaginotions: Truthless Tales by Tudor Jenks, 1894.

From Yankee Enchantments by Charles Battell Loomis and illustrated by F. Y. Cory, 1900. 

From Mocca, 1930.

A snippet from How to Believe in Your Elf.

From Yankee Enchantments by Charles Battell Loomis and illustrated by F. Y. Cory, 1900. 

"I've often heard the moon declare that shooting stars are growing there."  From Beyond the Mountain by Sarah Stokes Halkett and illustrated by Katharine Pyle, 1917.

From How to Believe in Your Elf.

"'Perhaps,' said the little man, "having lived forty centuries, I may be old enough to advise a young man of twenty-three."  From Imaginotions: Truthless Tales by Tudor Jenks, 1894.

From Judy, Or The London Serio-Comic Journal, 1869.

From an ad in Die Muskete, 1913.  Here's a gift idea: print this image out as a tag for this pair of charming booklets How to Be Your Own Cat and How to Believe in Your Elf.