parenthesis

(pə-rĕn'thĭ-sĭs)
n., pl., -ses (-sēz').

1. Either or both of the upright curved lines, ( ), used to mark off explanatory or qualifying remarks in writing or printing or enclose a sum, product, or other expression considered or treated as a collective entity in a mathematical operation.
2. 1. A qualifying or amplifying word, phrase, or sentence inserted within written matter in such a way as to be independent of the surrounding grammatical structure.
   2. A comment departing from the theme of discourse; a digression.
3. An interruption of continuity; an interval: "This is one of the things I wasn't prepared for-the amount of unfilled time, the long parentheses of nothing" (Margaret Atwood).

[Late Latin, insertion of a letter or syllable in a word, from Greek, from parentithenai, to insert : para-, beside; see para-¹ + en-, in + tithenai, to put.]

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1. Parenthesis is a term denoting an aside or extra remark that is added to a sentence; it is normally marked off by brackets, commas, or dashes, and the rest of the sentence is grammatically complete without it. Parentheses can be single words, phrases, or whole clauses:

In Italian, a language he had been told was the same as Rumanian, he asked to be directed to the British Legation—Olivia Manning, 1960

He and Moira (then a milkman's pretty daughter) grovelled together long and effectively enough to cause the eventual birth of their son Rick—Tim Winton, Shallows, 1985

On Thursday I come back from work to an empty house—Kate is spending the night at a girlfriend's house again—and the stillness and solitude calm me down—Angela Lambert, 1989

Once, I told one of the men to do something, and he—my father, that is—asked me what it would be like if I couldn't order men around any more—D. Leon, 2006.

2. Parentheses (plural) are, in printing terminology, round brackets. See brackets.

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The left parenthesis "(" and right parenthesis ")" are used to delineate one expression from another. For example, in the query list for size="34" and (color = "red" or color ="green"), parentheses group the ORs together so they are a distinct entity from the AND.

In programming, parentheses are used to surround input parameters of a function call. For example, in C, the string compare statement strnicmp (itemA, itemB, 10) uses parentheses to group the ITEMA, ITEMB and 10 values handed over to the function.

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noun

An instance of digressing: aside, deviation, digression, divagation, divergence, divergency, excursion, excursus, irrelevancy, tangent. See approach/retreat.

Punctuation marks — ( ) — used to separate elements in a sentence. Parentheses subordinate (see subordination) the material within them so that readers save most of their attention for the rest of the sentence: “Aunt Sarah (who is really my mother's cousin) will be visiting next week.”

IN BRIEF: A pair of signs ( ) used to enclose a sentence, phrase, or word that explains or comments on what is written. Also: used to enclose mathematical quantities.

The writer used parentheses to set apart the Latin names from the common names of the plants.

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For a list of words related to parenthesis, see:

• Rhetoric and Figures of Speech - parenthesis: remark made as explanation

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See words rhyming with "parenthesis."

  See crossword solutions for the clue Parenthesis.

Common misspelling(s) of parenthesis

• paranthesis

Dansk (Danish)
n. - parentes, mellemspil

Nederlands (Dutch)
ronde haakjes, tussenzin, pauze

Français (French)
n. - parenthèse

Deutsch (German)
n. - Klammer, Einschub

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - παρένθεση

Italiano (Italian)
parentesi

Português (Portuguese)
n. - parênteses (m pl), intervalo (m), divagação (f)

Русский (Russian)
вводное слово/предложение, круглая скобка

Español (Spanish)
n. - paréntesis

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - parentes

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
括弧, 附带, 插入语

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 括弧, 附帶, 插入語

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 삽입구, 괄호 [ ( ) ], 삽화

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 括弧, 余談

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) فترة فاصله, هلال أو هلالان, جمله معترضه توضع بين قوسين أو فاصلتين, قوسان اعتراضيانع‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮סוגריים, הסגר (בתחביר), מאמר מוסגר‬

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