Interjection

Pronunciation

• UK IPA: en, /ɪn.təˈdÊ’É›k.ʃən/
• US enPR: Ä­n'tÉ™r.jÄ•kʹshÉ™n, IPA: en, /ˌɪn.tɚˈdÍ¡Ê’É›k.ʃən/
• Rhymes: -en, -É›kʃən

Origin

From , from (13th century), from , accusative singular of interiectiō ("throwing or placing between; interjection"), perfect passive participle of intericiō ("throw or place between"), from inter ("between") + iaciō ("throw"). Displaced , a calque of the Latin.

Full definition of interjection

Noun

1. (grammar)(grammar) An exclamation or filled pause; a word or phrase with no particular grammatical relation to a sentence, often an expression of emotion.
• 1988, Andrew Radford, Transformational grammar: a first course Chapter 10, Some evidence confirming our suspicions that topicalised and dislocated constituents occupy different sentence positions comes from Greenberg (1984). He notes that in colloquial speech the interjection man can occur after dislocated constituents, but not after topicalised constituents: cf.
  (21) (a)      Bill, man, I really hate him (dislocated NP)
  (21) (b)    ^✽Bill, man, I really hate (topicalised NP)
2. An interruption; something interjected
• 2020-01-23, Philip Bump, Mnuchin said Thunberg needed to study economics before offering climate proposals. So we talked to an economist.

Synonyms

• (grammar) exclamation; interj or interj. (abbreviations used in dictionaries)
• (interruption) insertion, interpolation, intercalation

Derived terms

• note of interjection

Related terms

• interject
• interjectional