phrasing

1. 1
   noununcountable

   The particular way a statement is put together, especially its style and choice of words.

   The lawyer objected to the phrasing of the question.

   A small change in phrasing can shift the whole tone of a paragraph.

   Similarwording, terminology

   Note

   Wording is its closest synonym, and the two often trade places: the phrasing of a question, the wording of a question. Phrasing leans toward style. Mark Twain, in Life on the Mississippi (1870), mocks Sir Walter's "starchier way of phrasing it" when Southerner becomes Southron. The meaning is the same but the manner differs. The noun counts, too, so one idea can have two phrasings.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The way musical phrases are shaped and joined in a composition or its performance, through changes in tempo, volume, or emphasis on particular instruments.

   Her phrasing on the violin gave the melody a singing quality.

   The conductor reworked the phrasing to bring out the cellos.

   Note

   A musician's term that belongs as much to the player as to the score. A composer shapes where phrases fall, but a violinist, singer or conductor decides how each one breathes: where to lean, where to hold back, which line comes forward. In the plural it can mean the shaped passages themselves. Jim Marko, reviewing a Swados cantata in 1977, recalled "these musical phrasings in little swatches of sound."

3. 3
   verb

   Present participle of phrase.

   The editor is phrasing the headline to grab a reader's attention.

   By phrasing the offer gently, she avoided sounding pushy.

   Note

   The -ing form does double duty: a participle after be (she is phrasing the reply) and a gerund after a preposition (by phrasing it gently). Either way it usually takes an object, the thing being put into words. It also carries the musician's verb, which means dividing a melody into phrases or performing a passage with a chosen shape. Unlike the noun meaning wording, it never takes a plural, so phrasings belongs to the noun alone.

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