Words & WritingGreek → English
Paragraph
/ˈpærəɡrɑːf/noun
A block of prose set off as a unit, usually beginning on a new line.
The Greek roots
παρά
pará
beside, alongside
γράφειν
gráphein
to write, scratch
Literally: “written beside”
The story of the word
The παράγραφος was not the block of text but the mark itself, a short horizontal stroke drawn in the margin of a scroll to show where a new section began. Ancient writing ran on without gaps, so the reader needed that cue. Only much later did the name migrate from the marginal sign to the chunk of writing it pointed at.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Medieval Latin → Middle French → English
- First recorded
- 15th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
graphepigraphcalligraphy
In a sentence
Cut the opening paragraph and the report starts where the argument does.