phrase

Etymology

From Late Latin phrasis (“diction”), from Ancient Greek φράσις (phrásis, “manner of expression”), from φράζω (phrázō, “I tell, express”).

Pronunciation

• enPR: frāz, IPA^(key): /fɹeɪz/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪz
• Homophones: fraise, frays

Noun

phrase (plural phrases)

1. A short written or spoken expression.
2. (grammar) A word or group of words that functions as a single unit in the syntax of a sentence, usually consisting of a head, or central word, and elaborating words.
   • 2013 November 30, Paul Davis, “Letters: Say it as simply as possible”, in The Economist, volume 409, number 8864:

     Congratulations on managing to use the phrase “preponderant criterion” in a chart (“On your marks”, November 9th). Was this the work of a kakorrhaphiophobic journalist set a challenge by his colleagues, or simply an example of glossolalia?

3. (music) A small section of music in a larger piece.
4. (archaic) A mode or form of speech; diction; expression.
   • Tennyson

     phrases of the hearth

   • Shakespeare

     Thou speak'st / In better phrase and matter than thou didst.

Verb

phrase (third-person singular simple present phrases, present participle phrasing, simple past and past participle phrased)

1. (intransitive, music) To perform a passage with the correct phrasing.
2. (transitive, music) To divide into melodic phrases.
3. (transitive) To express (an action, thought or idea) by means of words.
   • Shakespeare

     These suns — for so they phrase 'em.

Further reading

• phrase in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
• phrase in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911

Anagrams

• E sharp, E-sharp, Harpes, Sharpe, Sherpa, Spehar, e sharp, e-sharp, harpes, hepars, pasher, phares, phaser, raphes, seraph, shaper, sharpe, sherpa, shrape, sphear

Etymology

From Latin phrasis (“diction”), from Ancient Greek φράσις (phrásis, “manner of expression”), from φράζω (phrázō, “I tell, express”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /fʁɑz/

• audio

  (file)

• Audio (CAN)

  (file)

Noun

phrase f (plural phrases)

1. sentence

Usage notes

• This is a false friend to English phrase.

Further reading

• “phrase” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Anagrams

• harpes, phares

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈpʰra.se/, [ˈpʰra.sɛ]

Noun

phrase

1. ablative singular of phrasis

Noun

phrase f (plural phrases)

1. Obsolete spelling of frase (used in Portugal until September 1911 and died out in Brazil during the 1920s).