parenthesis

Wikipedia

English

Etymology

Either indirectly via Middle French parenthese or directly from Late Latin parenthesis (“addition of a letter to a syllable in a word”), from Ancient Greek παρένθεσις (parenthesis), from παρεντίθημι (parentithēmi, “I put in beside, mix up”), from παρά (para, “beside”) + ἐν (en, “in”) + τίθημι (tithēmi, “put, place”) (from Proto-Indo-European base *dhe- "to put, to do").

Pronunciation

• IPA: /pəˈrɛnθəsɪs/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

Noun

parenthesis (plural parentheses)

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 round brackets, ( and ) (used to enclose parenthetical material in a text).
3. (rhetoric) A digression; the use of such digressions.
   • 2009, Up in the air:

     Ryan Bingham: I thought I was a part of your life. Alex Goran: 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: I'm a parenthesis?

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.

Synonyms

• (clause, phrase or word): parenthetical expression
• (brackets): round bracket
• paren (abbreviation, for the meaning "round bracket")
• See also Wikisaurus:bracket

Derived terms

• parenthetic
• parenthetic, parenthetical
• parenthesise, parenthesize

Translations

a clause, phrase or word inserted into a passage which is already grammatically complete

• Armenian: (word) միջանկյալ բառ (hy) (miǰankyal baṙ), (clause) միջանկյալ նախադասություն (hy) (miǰankyal naxadasut’yun)
• Czech: vsuvka (cs) f
• Dutch: parenthese (nl)

• Finnish: parenteesi
• Greek: παρένθεση (el) (parénthesi) f
• Russian: вводное слово (ru) (vvódnoje slóvo) n
• Swedish: parentes (sv) c

(Rhetoric) a digression; the use of such digressions

• Portuguese: parêntese (pt) m
• Russian: отступление (ru) (otstupleniye) n, отклонение (ru) (otkloneniye) n

either of a pair of brackets ( )

• Arabic: قوس (ar) (qaws) m (plural: أقواس (ar) ('aqwaas) m pl)
• Armenian: փակագիծ (hy) (p’akagiç)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 圓括號 (cmn), 圆括号 (cmn) (yuánkuòhào), 插入語 (cmn), 插入语 (cmn) (chārùyǔ)

• Czech: závorka (cs) f
• Dutch: ronde haakje n
• Finnish: sulkumerkki (fi)
• Greek: παρένθεση (el) (parénthesi) f
• Hungarian: zárójel (hu)
• Icelandic: svigi (is) m

• Japanese: 括弧 (ja) (かっこ, kakko)
• Malay: tanda kurung (ms)
• Persian: پرانتز (fa) (parântez)
• Portuguese: parêntese (pt)
• Russian: скобка (ru) (skóbka) f, круглая скобка (ru) (krúglaja skóbka) f
• Scottish Gaelic: camag (gd) f
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: за̑града (sh) f

  Roman: zȃgrada (sh) f

• Spanish: paréntesis (es) m
• Swedish: parentes (sv) c

both round brackets

• Armenian: փակագծեր (hy) (p’akagçer) pl
• Dutch: haakjes (nl) pl
• Greek: παρενθέσεις (el) (parenthéseis) f pl

• Portuguese: parênteses (pt) m pl
• Russian: скобки (ru) (skóbki) f pl

(mathematics, logic) brackets used to clarify expressions by grouping terms affected by a common operator

• Armenian: փակագծեր (hy) (p’akagçer) pl
• Dutch: haakje (plural haakjes)
• Finnish: sulkeet (fi)

• Greek: παρένθεση (el) (parénthesi) f
• Polish: nawias (pl) m
• Spanish: paréntesis (es) m

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Help:How to check translations.

Translations to be checked

• Esperanto: parentezo
• French: parenthèse f, parenthèses pl
• German: Klammer f
• Italian: parentesi f (plural parentesi)

• Portuguese: parêntese m
• Serbo-Croatian: zagrada f (plural zagrade)
• Spanish: paréntesis m

Anagrams

• interphases
• preanthesis