paragraph

paragraph — noun

1. a small chunk of writing built from a sentence or several sentences about one to

1.nounB1
Definition

a small chunk of writing built from a sentence or several sentences about one topic, with its first sentence usually starting on a fresh line and often slightly pushed in from the margin.

Example

Maya rewrote the opening paragraph of her essay three times before lunch.

collocation: opening / closing paragraph

The article about the earthquake had a short paragraph on each affected village.

paragraph + on/about [topic]

Common collocations
  • opening paragraph
  • closing paragraph
  • short paragraph
  • write a paragraph
  • indent a paragraph
Synonyms
  • passage

    broader: any short stretch of a longer text, not always set off by line breaks

  • section

    larger unit, usually made up of several paragraphs

Grammar Patterns

paragraph + about/on

first/last/opening/closing paragraph

Usage Note

Countable; usually preceded by an ordinal or position word (first, second, opening, closing, final) or modified by a topic phrase with 'about' or 'on'.

Common Mistakes

Please write a paragraph in dogs.
Please write a paragraph about dogs.
use 'about' or 'on' for the topic, not 'in'.
The book has many long paragraph.
The book has many long paragraphs.
paragraph is countable; use the plural with 'many'.

paragraph — verb

Word family

  • paragrapher
    nounC2
  • subparagraph
    nounC2

Synonym discussion

Sense: noun/1

A paragraph is a small block of writing that focuses on one idea and usually begins on a new, often indented, line; in school writing it is the basic unit between the sentence and the whole essay. A passage is broader and looser — any short stretch quoted or pointed out from a longer text, regardless of where the line breaks fall, often used in literature classes ('read this passage aloud'). A section is bigger than a paragraph and usually has its own heading or number, grouping several paragraphs that share a wider topic, as in a textbook chapter. A sentence is smaller: a single grammatical unit ending in a full stop, and a paragraph is built from one or more sentences. So a teacher might say, 'Write one paragraph about your weekend; underline the key sentence; this passage on page 30 is from a longer section about family life.'

paragraph ↗passage ↗section ↗sentence ↗

Common collocations

Nouns

  • opening paragraph
  • closing paragraph
  • first paragraph
  • last paragraph
  • short paragraph
  • long paragraph
  • indent of a paragraph
  • topic of a paragraph

Adverbs

Phrases

  • write a paragraph
  • read the paragraph aloud
  • skip a paragraph
  • start a new paragraph
  • end of the paragraph

Prepositions

  • paragraph about
  • paragraph on
  • in a paragraph
  • at the start of the paragraph
  • paragraph for [a publication]

Etymology

GreekLatinFrenchEnglish

From Greek 'paragraphos', literally 'something written beside': para- 'beside' plus graphein 'to write'. In ancient manuscripts a small mark was drawn in the margin to show where a new section began, and over time the word came to mean the section itself, not just the mark. The noun reached English in the 1500s through Latin and Middle French, and the verb uses (to break a text into paragraphs, to mention briefly in a paragraph) grew out of the noun in later centuries.