sentence fragment

American  

noun

1. a phrase or clause written as a sentence but lacking an element, as a subject or verb, that would enable it to function as an independent sentence in normative written English.

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Grammar

See sentence.

Etymology

Origin of sentence fragment

First recorded in 1945–50

Example Sentences

And there was a sentence fragment he’d crossed out, following the word spirit: “Of the divine.”

From New York Times • Jan. 21, 2024

To me as a scholar of constitutional law, each sentence and sentence fragment captures the commitment made by the nation in the wake of the Civil War to govern by constitutional politics.

From Salon • Dec. 20, 2023

For example, a sentence fragment, while technically incorrect, could be an effective way to emphasize a point.

From Textbooks • Dec. 21, 2021

If I’m not mistaken, that is a sentence fragment, and I believe Heckle would have disapproved.

From Washington Post • Apr. 24, 2020

And there’s not a successful novelist alive who would sell so much as a single book without making use of the artful sentence fragment, the well-deployed redundancy, even the wholly invented word.

From Time • Mar. 10, 2014