interjection

English

Etymology

From Middle English interjeccioun, from Old French interjection (13th century), from Latin interiectiōnem, accusative singular of interiectiō (“throwing or placing between; interjection”), perfect passive participle of intericiō (“throw or place between”), from inter (“between”) + iaciō (“throw”). By surface analysis, interject +‎ -ion. Displaced Old English betwēoxāworpennes (literally “between-thrown-out-ness”), a calque of the Latin.

Pronunciation

  • (UK) IPA(key): /ɪn.təˈdʒɛk.ʃən/
  • (US) enPR: ĭn'tər.jĕkʹshən, IPA(key): /ˌɪn.tɚˈd͡ʒɛk.ʃən/
  • Audio (US):(file)
  • Audio (Australia):(file)
  • Rhymes: -ɛkʃən

Noun

interjection (countable and uncountable, plural interjections)

  2. (countable, grammar) A phrase or word with no particular grammatical relation to a sentence but which serves to express emotion or as a filled pause; an exclamation.
    Synonyms: (abbreviation) interj, (abbreviation) interj.
    Hyponym: expletive
    • 1844, E. A. Andrews, First Lessions in Latin; or Introduction to Andrews and Stoddard's Latin Grammar, 6th edition, Boston, page 91:
      322. The parts of speech which are neither declined nor conjugated, are called by the general name of particles. 323. They are adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections.
    • 1988, Andrew Radford, chapter 10, in Transformational grammar: a first course, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, page 533:
      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)
  3. (countable) Something which is interjected; an interruption.
    Synonyms: insertion, intercalation, interpolation
    • 2020 January 23, Philip Bump, “Mnuchin said Thunberg needed to study economics before offering climate proposals. So we talked to an economist.”, in The Washington Post, Washington, D.C.: The Washington Post Company, →ISSN, →OCLC:
      Mnuchin, asked about climate change in a CNBC interview after his comments about Thunberg, argued there were bigger issues that also needed to be addressed. When a host noted clean air rules as an example of something that might be more urgent, Mnuchin ignored the interjection.
  4. (uncountable) The act of interjecting something.
    • 1986 February 9, Carlo Ginzburg, quotee, “Lives: Of Cheese, Witches, No TV And Histories of Common Men”, in The Washington Post‎[1], Washington, D.C.: The Washington Post Company, →ISSN, →OCLC:
      You can see how those people slowly interjected the inquisitors’ theme about witchcraft, about the witches’ sabbath. And how they slowly transformed their own beliefs into the witchraft beliefs. It took 50 years. I was fascinated by the possibility of reconstructing that kind of interjection – you interject a self-damaging image, a cultural pattern which is foreign to your own culture, from your enemy, from those judges.
      (Can we archive this URL?)
    • 2007 February 12, Cornelia Dean, “A creationist takes a place in the world of fossils”, in The New York Times‎[2], New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2026-00-00:
      If researchers like [John] Baumgardner do their work “without any form of interjection of personal dogma,” [John] Geissman said, “I would have to keep as objective a hat on as possible and say, ‘O.K., you earned what you earned.’”
    • 2024 January 16, Marina Hyde, “If Harrison Ford and John Travolta can be crowned living legends of aviation, why not Prince Harry?”, in Katharine Viner, editor, The Guardian‎[3], London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 16 January 2024:
      [A]n online petition – perhaps the most ineffectual form of interjection in modern public life, even including words spoken into the void on TalkTV – states the decision to honour the Duke of Sussex is a travesty on the part of “such an esteemed organisation”.
    • 2026 April 29, Ben Kenigsberg, “Three Great Documentaries to Stream”, in The New York Times‎[4], New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC:
      The title — sometimes styled with an exclamation point: “Point of Order!” — refers to one of the senator [Joseph McCarthy]’s favored methods of interjection. He grandstands, he deflects, he insinuates — sometimes to the clear exasperation of his interrogators.
      (Can we archive this URL?)

Derived terms

Translations

See also

French

Etymology

Inherited from Old French interjection, borrowed from Latin interiectiōnem.

Pronunciation

Noun

interjection f (plural interjections)

  1. (grammar) interjection

Further reading

Old French

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin interiectiō, interiectiōnem.

Noun

interjection oblique singular, f (oblique plural interjections, nominative singular interjection, nominative plural interjections)

  1. exclamation

Descendants

  • → English: interjection
  • French: interjection
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