parentheses

Cultural

Punctuation marks — ( ) — used to separate elements in a sentence. Parentheses subordinate (see subordination) the material within them so that readers save most of their attention for the rest of the sentence: “Aunt Sarah (who is really my mother's cousin) will be visiting next week.”

Example Sentences

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parentheses

It’s less jarring than parentheses but a bigger interruption than commas.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 20, 2025

They are listed in ascending order of their trailing-month returns, which are displayed in the parentheses.

From MarketWatch ● Nov. 10, 2025

It will always be a melter of a slow jam, but its intention is in those parentheses – to be in the sensation of aliveness he’s created.

From Salon ● Oct. 19, 2025

Finnie: But your name is no longer in parentheses.

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 15, 2024

If the entire quotation is in parentheses, then the closing parenthesis should go outside the quotation marks.

From "Woe Is I" by Patricia T. O'Conner

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023