(a.) Filling up; hence, added merely for the purpose of filling up; superfluous.
(n.) A word, letter, or syllable not necessary to the sense, but inserted to fill a vacancy; an oath.
Example Sentences:
(1) A few years back, a survey of 3,000 11-year-olds revealed that nine out of 10 parents swear in front of their children, and the average kid heard six different expletives per week (whoever said profanity was bad for your vocabulary?).
(2) Tories warned last night of a plot to destabilise one of David Cameron's most trusted advisers, after details of an expletive-fuelled row with train staff which led to an £80 fine for Steve Hilton, the strategy director, were leaked to Channel 4 News.
(3) This from the Wall Street Journal : As they lined up for a team photo at Incheon, Seoul’s main international airport, the players were showered with “yeot,” a traditional candy that is also a common synonym for a Korean expletive.
(4) But you saw the spirit in the team tonight, we kept fighting to the end.” For Leicester it was another chastening evening and one that ended with Nigel Pearson embroiled in an ugly row, in which expletives were exchanged, with a fan.
(5) On Thursday the FA disclosed the full extent of Ince's actions as it revealed he physically assaulted the fourth official Mark Pottage while using a series of expletives.
(6) The players have said to me: ‘We don’t want any Bertie Big,’” Walsh said, leaving out the expletive.
(7) One person told Starmer the decision not to prosecute was a "fucking disgrace", sources said, and other expletives were used.
(8) F1: Max Verstappen calls Toro Rosso strategy a ‘joke’ in expletive-laden tirade Read more “The team is in good shape, we know we can up our game and put pressure on these guys.
(9) One of Rajaratnam's co-accused, fund manager Danielle Chiesi, tells the government's informant on one call that "you put me in jail if you talk", adding that she will be like "Martha [expletive] Stewart".
(10) Meanwhile in the American League... Steve Busfield (@Busfield) Benches clear in Detroit as Martinez and Balfour fling expletives but no punches thrown.
(11) It was clear that McGregor’s barbs were getting at Diaz, who grew increasingly flustered and struggled to muster replies that went beyond a barrage of expletives.
(12) And there will still be a mixture of homegrown material and features glommed from Wired's American edition, alongside an eclectic slate of contributors that includes the distinguished (Oxford neuroscientist Susan Greenfield) and the rabble-rousing (Warren Ellis, the expletive-addicted comic book writer).
(13) Whereas an American, for example, has a little blow-hole on the top of their head from which they can release their irritation in an expletive-laced explosion, a Briton has no such release.
(14) Players that he knows to express one view in private, usually strident and expletive-laden, switch to bland when the camera rolls.
(15) A former UK cabinet minister has said he regrets losing his temper, after being recorded launching an expletive-ridden tirade at a London taxi driver following a visit to Buckingham Palace with his partner, who had just been awarded a CBE.
(16) Jeremy Corbyn’s Twitter account appeared to have been hijacked on Sunday night when a series of expletive-laden tweets were posted.
(17) The London mayor, Boris Johnson, has marked the last week of election campaigning with an expletive-laden tirade, accusing a senior BBC journalist of talking "fucking bollocks" on a lunchtime TV bulletin.
(18) Meryl Streep won for dramatic actress as Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady, her eighth win at the Globes – and surpised the audience with a string of expletives in her acceptance speech when she fumbled for her spectacles.
(19) Sometimes, his movement was not sharp enough and the expletives flowed in his direction and on other occasions, his touch or decision-making was not up to scratch.
(20) Instead, Cissé was left unattended to glance into the corner and you could almost hear the offers coming in for McClaren, who had given his players an expletive-filled rebuke after last week’s insipid defeat to Leicester , to pen a study on man-management.
Phrase
Definition:
(n.) A brief expression, sometimes a single word, but usually two or more words forming an expression by themselves, or being a portion of a sentence; as, an adverbial phrase.
(n.) A short, pithy expression; especially, one which is often employed; a peculiar or idiomatic turn of speech; as, to err is human.
(n.) A mode or form of speech; the manner or style in which any one expreses himself; diction; expression.
(n.) A short clause or portion of a period.
(v. t.) To express in words, or in peculiar words; to call; to style.
(v. i.) To use proper or fine phrases.
(v. i.) To group notes into phrases; as, he phrases well. See Phrase, n., 4.
Example Sentences:
(1) But in 2017, to borrow another phrase from across the pond, there simply is no alternative.
(2) I never accuse a student of plagiarizing unless I have proof, almost always in the form of sources easily found by Googling a few choice phrases.
(3) It's that he habitually abuses his position by lobbying ministers at all; I've heard from former ministers who were astonished by the speed with which their first missive from Charles arrived, opening with the phrase: "It really is appalling".
(4) The phrase “self-inflicted blow” was one he used repeatedly, along with the word “glib” – applied to his Vote Leave opponents.
(5) On Thursday, Dutton had scaled his language back, instead using a phrase to describe Labor’s policy borrowed from former prime minister, Tony Abbott.
(6) At a dinner party, say, if ever you hear a person speak of a school for Islamic children, or Catholic children (you can read such phrases daily in newspapers), pounce: "How dare you?
(7) The #putyourwalletsout phrase was coined by Sydney-based Twitter user Steve Lopez, who accompanied it with a photo of his wallet.
(8) He admitted that he had “no reason” to fire the shots that killed Steenkamp, as Nel told him: “Your version is so improbable, that nobody would ever think it’s reasonably, possibly true, it’s so impossible … Your version is a lie.” Nel said the phrase “I love you” appeared only twice in WhatsApp messages from Steenkamp and, on both occasions, they were written to her mother: “Never to you and you never to her.” Day 20: live coverage as it happened.
(9) Von Trier, who took a " vow of silence " after being banned from the Cannes film festival in 2011 after joking about Nazism during a press conference for Melancholia, arrived at Nymphomaniac's photocall wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the phrase "Persona Non Grata"; true to his word, he failed to attend the subsequent press conference where his actors and producer talked about the film.
(10) (now the phrase "reverse engineer" has me thinking).
(11) In it he translated Trump’s coarse ramblings into charming straight talk and came up with the phrase “truthful hyperbole”, which captures brilliantly an approach to business and politics in which everything is the greatest, the most beautiful.
(12) To complement these results a perception test was carried out in which 29 native speakers identified a randomised sequence of 220 stimuli from tape as one of the phrases 'Diese Gruppe kann ich nicht leid(e)n (leit(e)n)'.
(13) Peskov has refused to deny the phrase, saying only that Ponomaryov's publicising of a private conversation was "not manly".
(14) One of my technologists has a phrase: ‘internet of other people’s things,’” Tien said.
(15) The phrase “currency war” speaks to a seemingly phoney battle between the world’s major trading powers over the price of exports.
(16) Thereafter they both got so angry with one another they started adopting each other's pet phrases – "I won't be lectured to by..." – and there was the unnerving possibility they might just morph into a single, spluttering entity.
(17) Later that year, speaking at Sinn Féin's annual conference, I used the phrase "the Armalite and the ballot box" to sum up the new duel strategy of engaging in armed struggle and simultaneously contesting elections.
(18) Mohan also said it amounted to an "innocuous British institution", a phrase that inadvertently emphasised its anachronistic nature.
(19) The phrase "Frankenfood" entered tabloid English at the turn of the last century when protesters, backed by the green movement, trashed GM crops wearing white overalls and face masks as an emotive PR tactic.
(20) The phrase "Defender of the Faith," which is usually included in the King's titles, appears neither in the instrument of abdication nor in the bill.