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Phrase   /freɪz/   Listen
noun
Phrase  n.  
1.
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. ""Convey" the wise it call. "Steal!" foh! a fico for the phrase."
2.
A short, pithy expression; especially, one which is often employed; a peculiar or idiomatic turn of speech; as, to err is human.
3.
A mode or form of speech; the manner or style in which any one expreses himself; diction; expression. "Phrases of the hearth." "Thou speak'st In better phrase and matter than thou didst."
4.
(Mus.) A short clause or portion of a period. Note: A composition consists first of sentences, or periods; these are subdivided into sections, and these into phrases.
Phrase book, a book of idiomatic phrases.


verb
Phrase  v. t.  (past & past part. phrased; pres. part. phrasing)  To express in words, or in peculiar words; to call; to style. "These suns for so they phrase 'em."


Phrase  v. i.  
1.
To use proper or fine phrases. (R.)
2.
(Mus.) To group notes into phrases; as, he phrases well. See Phrase, n., 4.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Phrase" Quotes from Famous Books



... for silence. "Let me git through fust," he interrupted her. "Then ye kin hev yore say. Thar's two reasons why I'd favoured Bas. One of them was because he's a sober young man thet's got things hung up." There he paused, and the quaint phrase he had employed to express prosperity and thrift summed up his one argument ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... nice for Miss Beecher—though I can't say she is treating him very well. However, that may be their way. 'Romance apart from results,' was, I believe, his phrase." ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... and an obstacle to the resuscitation of bushido. Therefore, he set himself to restore all the manners and customs of former days, and it became his habit to preface decrees and ordinances with the phrase "In pursuance of the methods, fixed by Gongen" (Ieyasu). His idea was that only the decadence of bushido could result from imitating the habits of the Imperial Court, and as Manabe Norifusa did not endorse that view with sufficient zeal, ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... "fifties" are obviously approximate. The plan of the town given in Ramusio shows some forty-five fires, each serving some five families, but the interior division differs so greatly from that of early Huron and Iroquois houses, and from his phrase "fifty by twelve or fifteen," that it appears to be the result of inaccurate drawing. There is therefore considerable room for difference as to the population of the town, ranging from say 1,200 to 2,000 souls, the verbal description which ...
— Hochelagans and Mohawks • W. D. Lighthall
... Note 5. By this phrase was meant the reckoning of the year from Easter to Easter, subsequently fixed for convenience' sake at the ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt


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