Other forms: emphasises, emphases
Emphasis is extra weight given to one thing so that it stands out. The word you lean on in a sentence, the point a teacher keeps coming back to.
You place emphasis on something, or put the emphasis somewhere. In speech, emphasis is the stress that falls on a word, and moving it changes everything — I never said she took it means five different things depending on where the weight lands. In print, italics are emphasis made visible. The plural is emphases, which catches people out, and the verb is emphasise. With emphasis means said forcefully and with no room left for doubt.
1nounemphasisSpecial importance or attention given to something.
“The school places great emphasis on reading.”
2nounextraThe extra force given to a word or syllable in speech.
“Say it again, with the emphasis on the second word.”
Also accepted in games: stress
Emphasis is showing a thing in. Greek emphainō joins en, in, to phainō, to show, so to emphasise is to make something appear rather than merely to insist on it.
Proto-Indo-European
*bʰeh₂-
Ancient Greek
ἔμφασις — significance
Latin
emphasis
English, today
emphasis
Built from
From Latin emphasis, from Ancient Greek ἔμφασις (“significance”), from ἐμφαίνω (“to present; to indicate”), from ἐν- (“in”) + φαίνω (“to show”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA