Words & WritingGreek → English
Emphasis
/ˈɛmfəsɪs/noun
Special importance or prominence given to something.
The Greek roots
ἐν
en
in
φαίνω
phaínō
to show, bring to light
Literally: “a showing forth”
The story of the word
In Greek rhetoric ἔμφασις named a subtle device: saying less than you mean so the hearer supplies the rest, meaning shown rather than stated. English took it in the 1570s and gradually turned it inside out, so that emphasis now means stressing something openly, in speech, in print, or in the weight a building gives one facade. The root verb φαίνω also produced phenomenon, phantom and phase.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 1570s
Same family
emphaticphenomenonphantomphasediaphanous
In a sentence
He put the emphasis on the second syllable and the whole word changed meaning.