Parenthesis

/pəˈɹɛn.θə.sɪs/ · noun

Meaning

A clause, phrase or word which is inserted (usually for explanation or amplification) into a passage which is already grammatically complete, and usually marked off with brackets, commas or dashes..

Definitions by Sense

1. A clause, phrase or word which is inserted (usually for explanation or amplification) into a passage which is already grammatically complete, and usually marked off with brackets, commas or dashes.
2. Either of a pair of brackets, especially (mainly US) round brackets, ( and ) (used to enclose parenthetical material in a text).
3. (rhetoric) A digression; the use of such digressions.
4. (mathematics, logic) Such brackets as used to clarify expressions by grouping those terms affected by a common operator, or to enclose the components of a vector or the elements of a matrix.

Example Sentences

How expressive this little parenthesis: "Sakuntalâ makes a chiding gesture with her finger"!

There be five manner of points and divisions most used among cunning men; the which if they be well used, make the sentence very light and easy to be understood, both to the reader and hearer: and they be these, virgil,—come,—parenthesis,—plain point,—interrogative[…] it is a slender stroke leaning forward, betokening a little short rest, without any perfectness yet of sentence.

Whoever introduced the several points, it seems that a full-point, a point called come, answering to our colon-point, a point called virgil answering to our comma-point, the parenthesis-points and interrogative-point, were used at the close of the fourteenth, or beginning of the fifteenth century.

[T]he present research also made an effort to approach a greater accuracy in presenting the original sources of borrowed words. This was achieved by presenting etymons from Hindustani in the Devanagari script followed by a transliteration in the Roman alphabet in parentheses.

Mr. Trevanion was one of those talkers, who are too much engrossed with their own subject matter to have much attention to bestow elsewhere; with them silence is attention. Ethel's wandering eye, and lip, tremulous with its effort to speak, would never have attracted his notice. To his utter astonishment, she interrupted a parenthesis, as brilliant as the rocket which it depicted, by saying,— "Mr. Trevanion, I do not know what you will think of my boldness, but I must speak to you."

Ryan Bingham (George Clooney): I thought I was a part of your life. Alex Goran (Vera Farmiga): I thought we signed up for the same thing[…] I thought our relationship was perfectly clear. You are an escape. You're a break from our normal lives. You're a parenthesis. Ryan Bingham (George Clooney): I'm a parenthesis?

Synonyms for parenthesis

Antonyms for parenthesis

Related Words

Word Forms

• parentheses

Usage Notes

Choose a synonym only when it preserves the intended meaning, tone, and grammar of the full sentence.

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