(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.
Trope
Definition:
(n.) The use of a word or expression in a different sense from that which properly belongs to it; the use of a word or expression as changed from the original signification to another, for the sake of giving life or emphasis to an idea; a figure of speech.
(n.) The word or expression so used.
Example Sentences:
(1) For further education, this would be my priority: a substantial increase in funding and an end to tinkering with the form of qualifications and bland repetition of the “parity of esteem” trope.
(2) Arguing for a new nation state, the white paper understands that the old tropes of nationhood will no longer do, though until recently they sustained the anglophobic tendency of everyday nationalism, though until recently they sustained the anglophobic tendency of everyday nationalism.
(3) Ihave never really liked the liberal-left trope of Britain's "progressive majority", lately talked up by people campaigning for AV .
(4) Ivens's apology was issued after a meeting with Jewish community organisations including the Board of the Deputies of British Jews, which had complained to the Press Complaints Commission on Sunday, describing the cartoon as "appalling" and "all the more disgusting" for being published on Holocaust Memorial Day, "given the similar tropes levelled against Jews by the Nazis".
(5) As the report explains, researchers have long pointed to a widely believed cultural script of what constitutes a “real” rape – the trope of the lone lady being attacked at night as she made her way home through dark alleys.
(6) Purnell has long argued it is time to discard the old tropes of Brownite and Blairite.
(7) Melgaard pays poor lip service to these racist tropes, arguing that "racism is a form of sexuality.
(8) By focusing on Spock and Kirk as novices finding their footing, and putting their gut-vs-logic dynamic at the heart of the film, Abrams gives non-followers plenty to hang on to, but also pays homage to familiar Trek tropes: Bones says: "I'm a doctor, not a physicist!
(9) Her main project is new girl Tai (the late Brittany Murphy) who arrives at school as a clumsy, unconfident "ugly duckling" ripe for making over – allowing the film to indulge in that wonderful 80s teen movie trope: the dressing up montage.
(10) Instead, we returned to the old political tropes: a prime minister outside Downing street, backbenchers grousing on rolling news channels, financial experts delighted outside City buildings and Nigel Farage on College Green, standing outside the palace he wants to get in.
(11) You know you are desperate for ratings when you are willing to violate the law to push a story about two pages of tax returns from over a decade ago,” it said in a statement emailed to journalists with unusual zeal and which also repeated the Trump trope of “the dishonest media”.
(12) All these silly tropes appear in the first episode of My Transsexual Summer, Channel 4's new primetime reality doc .
(13) It takes the usual prison TV tropes of bent screws, lesbian affairs, claustrophobic pettiness and racial divides, and makes them seem fresh, skewing our perspectives in unexpected ways.
(14) Trump and his appeal embody certain universal tropes about bullying, humiliation and comedy.
(15) And the presence of the miniature handwritten note on textured paper is so Andersonesque as to make this essentially a trope magnified by a trope.
(16) It’s a trope that often plays an important part in the narrative of zombie stories.
(17) Recent months have seen a number of white, A-list pop artists such as Lily Allen, Iggy Azalea and Taylor Swift come under fire for appropriating black music tropes and perpetuating damaging stereotypes.
(18) It is a favoured trope of Nigel Farage and his fellow-travellers that the “Westminster elite” doesn’t want to talk about immigration.
(19) Is there a danger that – using the now-standard tropes of a strong sense of place, a dysfunctional detective, a haunting soundtrack and brutal crimes – the series will be seen as just another exercise in noir?
(20) No doubt it will soon make a comeback, but for now the “reform is stuck” trope has descended into an unedifying and largely evidence-free “debate” over penalty rates .