"emphasise" meaning in English

See emphasise in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-emphasise.wav [US] Forms: emphasises [present, singular, third-person], emphasising [participle, present], emphasised [participle, past], emphasised [past]
Etymology: From emphasis + -ise. Etymology templates: {{ety|en|:af|emphasis|-ise|text=+|tree=1}} From emphasis + -ise. Head templates: {{en-verb}} emphasise (third-person singular simple present emphasises, present participle emphasising, simple past and past participle emphasised)
  1. UK standard spelling of emphasize. Derived forms: deemphasise, emphasiser, overemphasise, re-emphasise, underemphasise, underemphasised

Inflected forms

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": ":af",
        "3": "emphasis",
        "4": "-ise",
        "text": "+",
        "tree": "1"
      },
      "expansion": "From emphasis + -ise.",
      "name": "ety"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From emphasis + -ise.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "emphasises",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "emphasising",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "emphasised",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "emphasised",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "emphasise (third-person singular simple present emphasises, present participle emphasising, simple past and past participle emphasised)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "British English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries referencing missing etymons",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with etymology texts",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with etymon",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms suffixed with -ise",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages using etymon with no ID",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with etymon",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "derived": [
        {
          "word": "deemphasise"
        },
        {
          "word": "emphasiser"
        },
        {
          "word": "overemphasise"
        },
        {
          "word": "re-emphasise"
        },
        {
          "word": "underemphasise"
        },
        {
          "word": "underemphasised"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              7,
              17
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2022 January 12, “Network News: £7.2 million plan to stop flooding and protect South West rail link”, in RAIL, number 948, page 12:",
          "text": "It has emphasised that the proposals do not involve any work on the railway itself, so train services would continue to run throughout.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              94,
              105
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2025 September 4, Sam Wolfson, quoting Newt Gingrich, “Latte-swilling ‘performative males’: why milky drinks are shorthand for liberal”, in The Guardian, →ISSN, archived from the original on 26 Sep 2025:",
          "text": "Newt Gingrich accused New York mayor Bill De Blasio of “small soy latte liberalism” in 2014 – emphasising that the only thing more girlish than drinking a big dairy milky coffee was drinking a small vegan milky coffee.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "UK standard spelling of emphasize."
      ],
      "id": "en-emphasise-en-verb-4eEhkGKx",
      "links": [
        [
          "emphasize",
          "emphasize#English"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-emphasise.wav",
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      "tags": [
        "US"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "emphasise"
}
{
  "derived": [
    {
      "word": "deemphasise"
    },
    {
      "word": "emphasiser"
    },
    {
      "word": "overemphasise"
    },
    {
      "word": "re-emphasise"
    },
    {
      "word": "underemphasise"
    },
    {
      "word": "underemphasised"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": ":af",
        "3": "emphasis",
        "4": "-ise",
        "text": "+",
        "tree": "1"
      },
      "expansion": "From emphasis + -ise.",
      "name": "ety"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From emphasis + -ise.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "emphasises",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "emphasising",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "emphasised",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "emphasised",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "emphasise (third-person singular simple present emphasises, present participle emphasising, simple past and past participle emphasised)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "British English",
        "English entries referencing missing etymons",
        "English entries with etymology texts",
        "English entries with etymon",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English terms suffixed with -ise",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English verbs",
        "Pages using etymon with no ID",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries",
        "Pages with etymon"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              7,
              17
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2022 January 12, “Network News: £7.2 million plan to stop flooding and protect South West rail link”, in RAIL, number 948, page 12:",
          "text": "It has emphasised that the proposals do not involve any work on the railway itself, so train services would continue to run throughout.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              94,
              105
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2025 September 4, Sam Wolfson, quoting Newt Gingrich, “Latte-swilling ‘performative males’: why milky drinks are shorthand for liberal”, in The Guardian, →ISSN, archived from the original on 26 Sep 2025:",
          "text": "Newt Gingrich accused New York mayor Bill De Blasio of “small soy latte liberalism” in 2014 – emphasising that the only thing more girlish than drinking a big dairy milky coffee was drinking a small vegan milky coffee.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "UK standard spelling of emphasize."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "emphasize",
          "emphasize#English"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-emphasise.wav",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/0/0b/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-emphasise.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-emphasise.wav.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/0/0b/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-emphasise.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-emphasise.wav.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "US"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "emphasise"
}

Download raw JSONL data for emphasise meaning in English (2.7kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-08-23 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-08-05 using wiktextract (872fc7b and 4deed51). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.