parenthesis
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.
Other meanings
Either of a pair of brackets, especially (mainly US) round brackets, ( and ) (used to enclose parenthetical material in a text).
A digression; the use of such digressions.
Related words
- parenthesome
- pregnant parenthesis
Example sentences
Word history
From Ancient Greek "παρένθεσις" (insertion).
Where this comes from
This definition is adapted from “parenthesis” on Wiktionary, by its contributors; example sentences are from Tatoeba, credited to their authors above, published under CC BY-SA 4.0. This page is published under the same licence.