phrase

noun

1. 1

   A short written or spoken expression.

   I've made progress, but this is still, in Churchill's phrase, just "the end of the beginning."

2. 2

   A word or, more commonly, a group of words that functions as a single unit in the syntax of a sentence, always containing an expressed or implied head (the principal word or subgroup, with core importance) and often consisting of a head plus some other elaborating words.

   Holonyms: clause, sentence; phrasing, phraseology, turn of phrase; phrase-book; document, message; language; communication

   Meronyms: head, complement, adjunct, supplement, modifier; term, word

   Congratulations on managing to use the phrase “preponderant criterion” in a chart (“On your marks”, November 9th). Was this the work of a kakorrhaphiophobic journalist set a challenge by his colleagues, or simply an example of glossolalia?

3. 3

   A small section of music in a larger piece.

4. 4

   archaicA mode or form of speech; diction; expression.

   Thou speak'st / In better phrase and matter than thou didst.

   […] From out a common vein of memory / Sweet household talk, and phrases of the hearth, […]

5. 5

   A short individual motion forming part of a choreographed dance.

verb

1. 1

   To express (an action, thought or idea) by means of particular words.

   I wasn't sure how to phrase my condolences without sounding patronising.

   These suns — for so they phrase 'em.

   Little disappointed, then, she turned attention to "Chat of the Social World," gossip which exercised potent fascination upon the girl's intelligence. She devoured with more avidity than she had her food those pretentiously phrased chronicles of the snobocracy—[…]—distilling therefrom an acid envy that robbed her napoleon of all its flavor.

2. 2

   To perform (a passage) with a particular phrasing.

3. 3

   To divide into melodic phrases.

Forms

plural

phrases

past tense

phrased

past participle

phrased

present participle

phrasing

third person singular

phrases