Other forms: paragraphs
A paragraph is a block of sentences starting on a new line. One idea, developed, and then a break.
The break is doing real work, since paragraphing is how a writer signals that a thought is finished. English convention is either an indent or a blank line, never both. Journalism uses very short ones and academic writing long ones. The word is often shortened to para in editing. There is a mark, the pilcrow, which shows where a new one begins and is visible in word processors.
1nounparagraphA distinct section of writing, beginning on a new line.
“The second paragraph contradicts the first.”
A paragraph was a mark in the margin. Greek paragraphos means written beside, from para, beside, and graphō, to write, and it named the sign that showed where a new section began long before it named the section.
Ancient Greek
παράγραφος
Latin
paragraphus — sign for start of a new section of discourse
Middle French
paragraphe
Middle English
paragraf
English, today
paragraph
Built from
From Middle English paragraf, from Middle French paragraphe from Latin paragraphus (“sign for start of a new section of discourse”), from Ancient Greek παράγραφος, from παρά (“beside”) and γράφω (“to write”). a doublet of paragraphos.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA