English Explanatory Dictionary

emphasis

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. Special weight or forcefulness given to something considered important.
  2. Special attention or prominence given to something.
  3. Prominence given to a syllable or words, by raising the voice or printing in italic or underlined type.
  4. The phonetic or phonological feature that distinguishes emphatic consonants from other consonants.
  5. The use of boldface, italics, or other such formatting to highlight text.

Pronunciation

/ˈɛmfəsɪs/ [ˈɛɱfəsɪs] [ˈeɱfəsɪs] [ˈɛɱfəsəs] [ˈeɱfəsəs] en-us-emphasis.ogg

Word forms

emphasis emphases

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”).

Related words

de-emphasisation de-emphasization emphasisation emphasise emphasiser emphasising emphasization emphasize emphasizer emphasizing emphatic emphatical emphatically emphaticalness emphaticness

Derived words

deemphasis de-emphasis hyperemphasis misemphasis my emphasis overemphasis preemphasis reemphasis superemphasis underemphasis
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