phrase

plural phrases

1. A short written or spoken expression.

   I've made progress, but this is still, in Churchill's phrase, just "the end of the beginning."

2. grammarA word or, more commonly, a group of words that functions as a single unit in the syntax of a sentence, always containing an expressed or implied head (the principal word or subgroup, with core importance) and often consisting of a head plus some other elaborating words.

   Meronyms: head, complement, adjunct, supplement, modifier; term, word

   3 more examples

   Holonyms: clause, sentence; phrasing, phraseology, turn of phrase; phrase-book; document, message; language; communication

   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?

   2013 November 30, Paul Davis, “Letters: Say it as simply as possible”, in The Economist, volume 409, number 8864

   There is always a head in a phrase. When it is not accompanied by anything else, we have a one-word phrase. Cheese can be an NP [noun phrase], and so can squid. If we didn't allow one-word phrases, we'd often have to say "either a noun or an NP," "either a verb or a VP," and so on. When I talk about a phrase, always remember that I don't mean a unit containing more than one word; I mean a unit with at least one word (the head), which may contain other words as well.

   2024, Geoffrey K. Pullum, The Truth About English Grammar, Polity Press, →ISBN, page 12

3. entertainmentA small section of music in a larger piece.
4. archaicA mode or form of speech; diction; expression.

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

   c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene vi]

   1 more example

   […] From out a common vein of memory / Sweet household talk, and phrases of the hearth, […]

   1847, Alfred Tennyson, “Part II”, in The Princess: A Medley, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 39

   Synonyms: figure of speech, locution, verbalism

5. danceA short individual motion forming part of a choreographed dance.

present singular third person phrases · participle present phrasing · participle past phrased · past phrased

1. transitiveTo express (an action, thought or idea) by means of particular words.

   I wasn't sure how to phrase my condolences without sounding patronising.

   2 more examples

   These suns — for so they phrase 'em.

   1613 (date written), William Shakespeare, [John Fletcher], “The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eight”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i]

   Little disappointed, then, she turned attention to "Chat of the Social World," gossip which exercised potent fascination upon the girl's intelligence. She devoured with more avidity than she had her food those pretentiously phrased chronicles of the snobocracy—[…]—distilling therefrom an acid envy that robbed her napoleon of all its flavor.

   1914 November, Louis Joseph Vance, “An Outsider […]”, in Munsey’s Magazine, volume LIII, number II, New York, N.Y.: The Frank A[ndrew] Munsey Company, […], published 1915, →OCLC, chapter I (Anarchy), page 373, column 2

2. intransitivetransitiveentertainmentTo perform (a passage) with a particular phrasing.
3. transitiveentertainmentTo divide into melodic phrases.