emphasise

1. 1.

   give extra weight to (a communication)

   “Her gesture emphasized her words”

   Synonymsunderscoreunderlineemphasize

   Broaderstress
2. 2.

   to stress, single out as important

   “Dr. Jones emphasizes exercise in addition to a change in diet”

   Synonymsstressemphasizepunctuateaccentaccentuate

   Broaderexpress

   Narrowerbackgroundbring outre-emphasisebear downtopicalizepoint updrive homeunderscore

Other forms of emphasise

past tense

emphasised·

present participle

emphasising·

third person

emphasises·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about emphasise

What does emphasise mean?

emphasise means "give extra weight to (a communication)". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in emphasise?

emphasise has 3 syllables: em-pha-sise. The stress falls on "em".

What is another word for emphasise?

Close synonyms include underscore, underline, emphasize, stress, emphasize. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is emphasise a common word?

emphasise is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.