Emphatic
//ɛmˈfætɪk// adj, noun
adj, noun ·Moderate ·High school level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 An emphatic consonant.
- 2 A word or phrase adding emphasis, such as a lot or really.
Adjective
- 1 Characterized by emphasis; forceful.
"Yet when play restarted the Czech was a train that kept on running over Nadal. After breaking Nadal in the opening game of the final set, he went 2-0 up and later took the count to 4-2 with yet another emphatic ace – one of his 22 throughout."
- 2 Stated with conviction.
"He gave me an emphatic no when I asked him out."
- 3 Belonging to a set of English tense forms comprising the auxiliary verb do plus an infinitive without to.
- 4 Belonging to a series of obstruent consonants in several Afro-Asiatic languages that are distinguished by a guttural (co-)articulation.; Phrayngealized consonants in Arabic, Hebrew, other Northwest Semitic languages, and Berber languages.
- 5 Belonging to a series of obstruent consonants in several Afro-Asiatic languages that are distinguished by a guttural (co-)articulation.; Ejective consonants in Ge'ez, Amharic, other Ethiopic Semitic languages, Chadic and Cushitic languages.
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- 6 Referring to the above consonants as well as /ħ/ and /ʕ/ (these being seen as emphatic equivalents of /h/ and /ʔ/).
Adjective
- 1 forceful and definite in expression or action wordnet
- 2 sudden and strong wordnet
- 3 spoken with emphasis wordnet
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"I have pretty much forgotten the emphatic constructions."
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.
Related phrases
More for "emphatic"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.