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emphatic

Pronunciation: /ɛmˈfætɪk/

The English word “emphatic” has 10 meanings listed here.

adjective

  1. Characterized by emphasis; forceful.
  2. Stated with conviction.
  3. Belonging to a set of English tense forms comprising the auxiliary verb do plus an infinitive without to.
  4. Relating to an emphatic pronoun, or a noun with an emphatic suffix attached to it.
  5. Phrayngealized consonants in Arabic, Hebrew, other Northwest Semitic languages, and Berber languages.
  6. Ejective consonants in Ge'ez, Amharic, other Ethiopic Semitic languages, Chadic and Cushitic languages.
  7. Referring to the above consonants as well as /ħ/ and /ʕ/ (these being seen as emphatic equivalents of /h/ and /ʔ/).

noun

  1. An emphatic consonant.
  2. A word or phrase adding emphasis, such as a lot or really.
  3. A distinct pronoun form or noun suffix found in certain languages (e.g. Goidelic languages) that is used to place emphasis on the noun or pronoun in order to create contrast with the rest of the sentence.

Etymology

From Ancient Greek ἐμφατικός (emphatikós, “emphatic”), from ἐμφαίνω (emphaínō, “I show, present”), from ἐν (en, “in”) + φαίνω (phaínō, “I shine, show”); related to ἔμφασις (émphasis) and English emphasis.

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.