paragraph
Americannoun
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a distinct portion of written or printed matter dealing with a particular idea, usually beginning with an indentation on a new line.
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a note, item, or brief article, as in a newspaper.
verb (used with object)
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to divide into paragraphs.
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to write or publish paragraphs about, as in a newspaper.
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to express in a paragraph.
noun
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(in a piece of writing) one of a series of subsections each usually devoted to one idea and each usually marked by the beginning of a new line, indentation, increased interlinear space, etc
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printing the character ¶, used as a reference mark or to indicate the beginning of a new paragraph
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a short article in a newspaper
verb
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to form into paragraphs
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to express or report in a paragraph
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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paragraphismnoun
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subparagraphnoun
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paragraphicadjective
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paragraphisticaladjective
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unparagraphedadjective
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well-paragraphedadjective
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paragraphicallyadverb
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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paragraphsimple
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paragraphssimple
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have paragraphedperfect
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has paragraphedperfect
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am paragraphingprogressive
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are paragraphingprogressive
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is paragraphingprogressive
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have been paragraphingperfect progressive
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has been paragraphingperfect progressive
Past
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paragraphedsimple
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had paragraphedperfect
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was paragraphingprogressive
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were paragraphingprogressive
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had been paragraphingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of paragraph
1515–25; earlier paragraphe < Greek paragraphḗ marked passage; see para- 1, graph
Explanation
A full page of text with no visible breaks is hard to read. That’s why you break your ideas up into groups of sentences, called paragraphs. Each paragraph contains logically connected sentences about one main idea. If your teacher asks you to write a paragraph on learning vocabulary words, you will write several sentences that describe how to learn vocabulary. Each sentence will add to the topic and will connect one to the other. The length of a paragraph will vary. Your teacher might require just three or four sentences to accurately describe vocabulary learning. Unless he’s a fan of James Joyce. Then your paragraph might need to extend for pages and pages.
Vocabulary lists containing paragraph
PARCC: Language of the Test (Grade7)
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Write On!: Graph and Gram
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The SAT: Language of the Test, List 4
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The final Deal will confirm the permanent termination of the war on all fronts, including in Lebanon, and other provisions of this paragraph.
From Salon ● Jun. 23, 2026
His victory speech, in the middle of the night, was, paragraph by paragraph, implicit about his ambitions and in totality almost explicit.
From BBC ● Jun. 19, 2026
The framework’s first paragraph declares “the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon.”
From Slate ● Jun. 17, 2026
Her voice is gleeful and unapologetic, right from the opening paragraph, written at the height of her notoriety: “I am totally cashing in to capitalize on the moment.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 4, 2026
“It’s simple reading comprehension. Read the paragraph and summarize, in a couple of sentences, what it was about. That’s it. It’s not rocket science.”
From "A Very Large Expanse of Sea" by Tahereh Mafi
Its policy statement on Wednesday consisted of four short paragraphs, while previous statements, such as the one in April, included traditional boilerplate items, comments on recent events and details of policy votes by committee members.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 18, 2026
Trump and his aides have heralded as a major accomplishment the eighth of the framework’s 14 paragraphs, which states: “The Islamic Republic of Iran reaffirms that it shall not procure or develop nuclear weapons.”
From Slate ● Jun. 17, 2026
Nonetheless, just two short paragraphs generated a great deal of controversy.
From BBC ● Jun. 10, 2026
What follows is a story told in hasty paragraphs, pithy fragments and cynical dispatches from a conspiracy theory-infested America.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 28, 2026
They were writing paragraphs, lists, charts, and graphs.
From "Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie" by Jordan Sonnenblick
The ear of society?—they were talking, or almost, as if he had publicly paragraphed a modest young lady.
From The Wings of the Dove, Volume II by James, Henry
It certainly was playing to the Press, for Mr. Gladstone's attitude on that occasion was paragraphed all over the country, by means of which fact I have here refreshed my memory.
From The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 by Furniss, Harry
I was lampooned, caricatured, and paragraphed in the newspapers, in a thousand different ways.
From Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI by Leighton, Alexander
As the matter was received over the wire he paragraphed it so that each printer had exactly three lines, thus enabling the matter to be set up very expeditiously in the newspaper offices.
From Edison, His Life and Inventions by Dyer, Frank Lewis
One day Field said to Bok: "I am going to make you the most widely paragraphed man in America."
From The Americanization of Edward Bok : the autobiography of a Dutch boy fifty years after by Bok, Edward William
Correctly identify and use conventions of the personal narrative genre, including structure, paragraphing, tone, and mechanics.
From Textbooks ● Dec. 21, 2021
Determine how genre conventions for structure, paragraphing, tone, and mechanics vary.
From Textbooks ● Dec. 21, 2021
It's a massive book, littered with obscure references, and is written almost entirely in unattributed speech, with no chapter breaks and very little paragraphing.
From The Guardian ● Jan. 22, 2013
Caro now says that Shawn agreed to restore all the changes he cared most deeply about, but the magazine version nevertheless differs from the original and changes Caro’s punctuation and paragraphing.
From New York Times ● Apr. 12, 2012
Among the many dumb rules of paragraphing foisted on students in composition courses is the one that says that a paragraph may not consist of a single sentence.
From "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
