parenthetical

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Definitions (9)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (3)

  1. adjective Set off within or as if within parentheses; qualifying or explanatory: a parenthetical remark.
  2. adjective Using or containing parentheses.
  3. noun A parenthetical word, phrase, or remark.

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Examples

  • While the Ciris, like the Peleus and Thetis, is over-free with involved and parenthetical sentences, it has on the whole fewer run-over lines so that indeed the frequent coincidence of sense pauses and verse endings almost borders on monotony. —  Vergil
  • No mark separates question from answer, digressions from parenthetical observations. —  Rashi
  • “What was said there in for a princess considered by the Speaker or Writer as proper or suitable to be head on my harem (a room or part for confinement of Women of Eastern monarch) [Footnote: A parenthetical drollery inspired by the dictionary.] there is no least intention occurred to me even once or in my dream indeed! —  The English Governess at the Siamese Court
  • The main substance in this Presidential approach, therefore, would have produced no ill-feeling; as usual, it was a few parenthetical phrases — phrases which were not essential to the main argument — which set the allied countries seething with indignation. —  The Life and Letters of Walter H Page
  • After the book was published in England, Mr. Buskin wrote to Mr.. Stowe: — “Well, I have read the book now, and I think nothing can be nobler than the noble parts of it (Mary's great speech to Colonel Burr, for instance), nothing wiser than the wise parts of it (the author's parenthetical and under-breath remarks), nothing more delightful than the delightful parts (all that Virginie says and does), nothing more edged than the edged parts (Candace's sayings and doings, to wit); but I do not like the plan of the whole, because the simplicity of the minister seems to diminish the probability of Mary's reverence for him. —  The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe
 

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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

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Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
 

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/pærɛnˈθɛtɪkəl/
by American Heritage

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