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.

---

Grammar

See sentence.

Etymology

Origin of sentence fragment

First recorded in 1945–50

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

sentence fragment

For example, starting with the sentence fragment "an AI system can…," ChatGPT will predict that the next word should be "learn," "predict" or "understand."

From Salon ● Apr. 6, 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

Unfortunately the key sentence fragment in this entire article is, "running low on food and drinking water".

From New York Times ● Dec. 18, 2016

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