# parenthesis

Pronunciation: say "puh-REN-thuh-sis" /pəˈɹɛnθəsɪs/

## Noun

1. Either of a pair of curved brackets, ( and ), used to enclose explanatory or supplementary material in a text.
   - Simple: One of the two curved marks ( and ) used to add extra information in writing.
   - _He typed an opening parenthesis but never got around to the closing one._
   - _The editor moved the citation into parentheses at the end of the sentence._
2. A word, phrase, or clause inserted into a passage that is already grammatically complete, usually to explain or expand on it, and typically set off by brackets, commas, or dashes.
   - Simple: Extra words put into a sentence to explain something, usually marked with brackets, commas, or dashes.
   - _The biographical detail appears as a parenthesis, set off by dashes in the middle of the sentence._
   - _Skilled speakers can insert a parenthesis without losing the thread of their argument._
3. Round brackets used in mathematics and logic to group the terms affected by a common operator, or to enclose the components of a vector or the elements of a matrix.
   - Simple: Curved brackets used in math to show which parts of a problem belong together.
   - _Without a parenthesis around the sum, the multiplication applies only to the first term._
   - _The vector's components are written inside parentheses, separated by commas._
4. A digression from the main subject of a speech or piece of writing, or the practice of making digressions.
   - Simple: A break from the main subject in talk or writing, before coming back to it.
   - _The lecture's twenty-minute parenthesis on medieval trade routes tested everyone's patience._
   - _Their conversation drifted into a parenthesis about old friends before returning to business._

## Origin

This is a learned borrowing from Late Latin parenthesis, meaning the addition of a letter to a syllable in a word, which itself came from Ancient Greek παρένθεσις (parénthesis), meaning "insertion."

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/parenthesis (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).