parenthesis

CEFRC1

/pəˈɹɛn.θə.sɪs/

noun

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

01
noun
One of the curved marks used around extra information in writing.
02
noun
Extra detail
A digression; the use of such digressions.

Examples

You have an unmatched open parenthesis in your first sentence.
You added an extra parenthesis.

At a glance

Sits at C1 on the CEFR scale

Senses: 5
Parts of speech: 1
Citations: 5
Synonyms: 5

Deep Dive

noun

Extra meanings

Either of a pair of brackets, especially (mainly US) round brackets, ( and ) (used to enclose parenthetical material in a text).
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.
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.

More examples

In context

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

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

The writer used a left blank to begin the side note.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Citations

The word in print, with each source given in full.

How expressive this little parenthesis: "Sakuntalâ makes a chiding gesture with her finger"!
1903, Karl Mantzius, A History of Theatrical Art in Ancient and Modern Times, page 86
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.
1824, John Johnson, Typographia, Or the Printer's Instructor, London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green
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.
1842, F. Francillon, An Essay on Punctuation, page 9
[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.
2018, James Lambert, “Anglo-Indian slang in dictionaries on historical principles”, in World Englishes, volume 37, page 255
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."
1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XV, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 113

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Origin

noun

Learned borrowing from Late Latin parenthesis (“addition of a letter to a syllable in a word”), itself borrowed from Ancient Greek παρένθεσις (parénthesis, “insertion”). By surface analysis, par- + en- + thesis.

Deep Dive

noun

More examples

Related

Quick test

The writer used a left blank— to begin the side note.

Nearby

Origin

noun

The writer used a left blank to begin the side note.