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Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) - Cite This Source - Share This

pa·ren·the·sis

Audio Help [puh-ren-thuh-sis] Pronunciation Key

–noun, plural -ses

Audio Help [-seez] Pronunciation Key.

1.	either or both of a pair of signs ( ) used in writing to mark off an interjected explanatory or qualifying remark, to indicate separate groupings of symbols in mathematics and symbolic logic, etc.

2.	Usually, parentheses. the material contained within these marks.

Grammar. a qualifying, explanatory, or appositive word, phrase, clause, or sentence that interrupts a syntactic construction without otherwise affecting it, having often a characteristic intonation and indicated in writing by commas, parentheses, or dashes, as in William Smith—you must know him—is coming tonight.

4.	an interval.

[Origin: 1560–70; < LL < Gk parénthesis a putting in beside. See par-, en-², thesis

]

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
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Parentheses

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American Heritage Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This

pa·ren·the·sis Audio Help (pə-rěn'thĭ-sĭs) Pronunciation Key
n. pl. par·en·the·ses (-sēz')

Either or both of the upright curved lines, ( ), used to mark off explanatory or qualifying remarks in writing or printing or enclose a sum, product, or other expression considered or treated as a collective entity in a mathematical operation.
1. A qualifying or amplifying word, phrase, or sentence inserted within written matter in such a way as to be independent of the surrounding grammatical structure.
2. A comment departing from the theme of discourse; a digression.
An interruption of continuity; an interval: "This is one of the things I wasn't prepared for—the amount of unfilled time, the long parentheses of nothing" (Margaret Atwood).

[Late Latin, insertion of a letter or syllable in a word, from Greek, from parentithenai, to insert : para-, beside; see para-¹ + en-, in; see en in Indo-European roots + tithenai, to put; see dhē- in Indo-European roots.]

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The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2006 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
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American Heritage New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition - Cite This Source - Share This
parentheses

Punctuation marks — ( ) — used to separate elements in a sentence. Parentheses subordinate (see subordination) the material within them so that readers save most of their attention for the rest of the sentence: “Aunt Sarah (who is really my mother's cousin) will be visiting next week.”

[Chapter:] Conventions of Written English

Free On-line Dictionary of Computing - Cite This Source - Share This

parentheses
See left parenthesis, right parenthesis.
(1997-12-03)