Words & WritingGreek → English
Phrase
/freɪz/noun
A small group of words that works as a unit without making a full sentence.
The Greek roots
φράζειν
phrázein
to point out, declare
Literally: “a pointing out in words”
Follow a root:φράζειν2 words
The story of the word
φράσις was a speaker's manner of expression, the way something is put rather than what is in it, and Greek rhetoricians used it for style. English took it in the sixteenth century for a set expression, and the grammatical sense came later. Musicians use it in the Greek sense: a phrase is a stretch of melody a player shapes as one gesture, which is closer to the original idea than any noun phrase.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → French → English
- First recorded
- 1520s
Same family
paraphraseperiphrasisphraseologyantiphrasis
In a sentence
She had a phrase for it that I have never heard anyone else use.