phatic
/ˈfætɪk/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.12 in modern English
13
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
2
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
Pertaining to words used to convey any kind of social relationship and whose meaning is otherwise either deemphasized or absent.
noun
A phatic utterance.
Example Sentences
- "You needn't be angry about the insincerity of shopkeepers' how-are-you greetings. Well-adjusted people understand that the question is phatic in the context and that that's usually no problem."
- "Some dialects of a language may use a certain term or phrase in a phatic way, even if other dialects don't."
- "Generally speaking, statements in WE are expected to be of a tautologous nature, thus fulfilling the essential phatic nature of speech."
- "Dispensing with phatic chitchat, he began straightaway to tell the story of his “people.”"
Etymology
From Ancient Greek φατός (phatós, “spoken”) - from φημί (phēmí, “I say”) - + -ic. Probably formally influenced by emphatic, which predates this term.
Word Breakdown
- Suffix: ic
Inflected Forms
more phatic (comparative)
most phatic (superlative)
phatics (plural)