A greeting is a type of phatic expression.
Source: tatoeba (10761942)
Phatic
//ˈfætɪk//
Synonyms for "phatic" (11 found)
Ranked by relevance and common usage.
Closest matches (3)
Strong matches (3)
Related words (5)
Related word relations
OpenGloss and ConceptNet supply richer edges like generalizations, collocations, and derivations.
Related terms
7 entriesderived
3 entrieshas context
1 entriesrelated to
2 entriesTranslations
11 translations across 11 languages.
Catalan
1 entries- fàtic adj (pertaining to words used to convey any kind of social relationship)
Dutch
1 entries- fatisch adj (pertaining to words used to convey any kind of social relationship)
Finnish
1 entries- faattinen adj (pertaining to words used to convey any kind of social relationship)
French
1 entries- phatique adj (pertaining to words used to convey any kind of social relationship)
German
1 entries- phatisch adj (pertaining to words used to convey any kind of social relationship)
Hungarian
1 entries- fatikus adj (pertaining to words used to convey any kind of social relationship)
Indonesian
1 entries- fatis adj (pertaining to words used to convey any kind of social relationship)
Polish
1 entries- fatyczny adj (pertaining to words used to convey any kind of social relationship)
Portuguese
1 entries- fático adj (pertaining to words used to convey any kind of social relationship)
Spanish
1 entries- fático adj (pertaining to words used to convey any kind of social relationship)
Swedish
1 entries- fatisk adj (pertaining to words used to convey any kind of social relationship)
Sample sentences
5 total sentences available.
You needn't be angry about the insincerity of shopkeepers' how-are-you greetings. Well-adjusted people understand that the question is phatic in the context and that that's usually no problem.
Source: wiktionary
Some dialects of a language may use a certain term or phrase in a phatic way, even if other dialects don't.
Source: wiktionary
Generally speaking, statements in WE are expected to be of a tautologous nature, thus fulfilling the essential phatic nature of speech.
Source: wiktionary
Showing 4 of 5 available sentences.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.