emphasis
/ˈɛmfəsɪs/ noun
Forms emphases
- noun Special weight or forcefulness given to something considered important. “He paused for emphasis before saying who had won.”
- noun Special attention or prominence given to something. “Anglia TV's emphasis is on Norwich and district.”
- noun Prominence given to a syllable or words, by raising the voice or printing in italic or underlined type. “He used a yellow highlighter to indicate where to give emphasis in his speech.”
- noun (phonology) The phonetic or phonological feature that distinguishes emphatic consonants from other consonants.
- noun (typography) The use of boldface, italics, or other such formatting to highlight text.
Synonyms
Etymology
From Latin emphasis, from Ancient Greek ἔμφασις (émphasis, “significance”), from ἐμφαίνω (emphaínō, “to present; to indicate”), from ἐν- (en-, “in”) + φαίνω (phaínō, “to show”).
Webster’s 1913
- noun A particular stress of utterance, or force of voice, given in reading and speaking to one or more words whose signification the speaker intends to impress specially upon his audience.
- noun A peculiar impressiveness of expression or weight of thought; vivid representation, enforcing assent; as, to dwell on a subject with great emphasis.
Etymology [L., fr. Gr. In, and Phase.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “emphasis”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details