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# parenthesis

«parenthesis» in Mova's school dictionary: **A word, phrase or sentence put into another sentence as…** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 2 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

### part of speech

noun (a parenthesis, parentheses)

### meaning for a pupil

1) (punctuation) A word, phrase or sentence put into another sentence as extra information, marked by brackets, commas or dashes. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/parenthesis/#m1)

2) (US) One of the round brackets ( ). [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/parenthesis/#m2)

3) (maths) Round brackets that show which part of a calculation to do first. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/parenthesis/#m3)

### sense in the lessons

In grammar lessons (UK Key Stage 2), pupils learn parenthesis: extra information marked by brackets, dashes or commas, as in «My dog (who is very old) sleeps a lot». In maths, operations inside parentheses are done first (BIDMAS, BODMAS, PEMDAS). Phrases: «in parentheses», «use parenthesis», «brackets for parenthesis».

### examples

- My cat, who is very lazy, sleeps all day — this is parenthesis with commas. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/parenthesis/#x1)
- Put extra information in parentheses (like this). [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/parenthesis/#x2)
- In maths, work out the parentheses first: (3 + 4) × 2 = 14. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/parenthesis/#x3)
- Use dashes for parenthesis — they make it stand out. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/parenthesis/#x4)
- The teacher asked us to add a parenthesis to our sentence. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/parenthesis/#x5)
- In the US, ( ) are called parentheses; in the UK they are usually «brackets». [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/parenthesis/#x6)

### note

Plural «parentheses» (-is → -es, like crisis/crises). Adjective «parenthetical». Maths: (2 + 3) × 4 = 20 but 2 + 3 × 4 = 14 — brackets change the answer. Trap: in UK school grammar «parenthesis» means the extra phrase itself; in US use it often means the bracket marks.

### In the corpora

- [Parenthesis is extra information added to a sentence; the sentence still makes sense if you take it out.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/36-brackets-dashes-colons-semicolons-and-hyphens/5/)
- [Brackets, a pair of dashes, or a pair of commas can all mark parenthesis.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/36-brackets-dashes-colons-semicolons-and-hyphens/6/)

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «parenthesis» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/parenthesis/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.