phatic
Pertaining to words used to convey any kind of social relationship and whose meaning…Pertaining to words used to convey any kind of social relationship and whose meaning is otherwise either deemphasized or absent.
Meaning
1 sensesPertaining to words used to convey any kind of social relationship and whose meaning is otherwise either deemphasized or absent.
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.
Some dialects of a language may use a certain term or phrase in a phatic way, even if other dialects don't.
phatisch
Examples
1 sentencesA greeting is a type of phatic expression.
Translations
5 languagesBy meaning 1
Origin
From Ancient Greek φατός (phatós, “spoken”) - from φημί (phēmí, “I say”) - + -ic.From Ancient Greek φατός (phatós, “spoken”) - from φημί (phēmí, “I say”) - + -ic.
Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
Forms
more phatic, most phatic| Comparative | more phatic Lesson |
|---|---|
| Superlative | most phatic Lesson |
regular
Word family
7 related wordsLessons for this word
2 lessons- A2Comparatives — Because it has a comparative form
- A2Superlatives — Because it has a superlative form
See also
neighbours in the dictionaryDictionary text adapted from Wiktionary (Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0) and Open English WordNet / Princeton WordNet (CC BY 4.0, WordNet License); shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Example sentences and recordings are credited where they appear.